How to play Worldle

The goal

Worldle shows you the silhouette of a country or territory, without a name and without the map around it. Your job is to find out which place it is in no more than 6 guesses. The answer can be a large country such as Brazil, a small island nation such as Malta, or a territory such as Greenland or Puerto Rico.

There are two ways to play. The Daily Worldle has one country a day, the same for everyone, and it changes at midnight in your time zone. Practice gives you random countries, one after another, as many as you like. On your first visit the game opens a short help window with example guesses; you can open it again at any time with the Help button in the top bar.

Making a guess

Type a country into the input under the shape. As you type, a list of matching names appears, with the best matches first. Capital letters and accents do not matter, and common short forms work too: USA, UK, Holland, DRC, UAE or Ivory Coast find the right country. Choose a name from the list and press the Guess button, or press Enter, which sends the highlighted suggestion at once.

If the game does not know the name, it says so and keeps what you typed, so you can correct it. The same happens if you try a country you have already guessed; a repeated guess never costs you a turn.

Reading a guess row

Each guess appears as a row under the input, with four parts:

• Name: the country you guessed.
• Distance: how far it is from the hidden country, measured between the center points of the two, in kilometers or miles.
• Direction: an arrow that points from your guess toward the hidden country. There are 8 directions: north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west and northwest, so each arrow covers a wide wedge of the map.
• Proximity: a percentage with a bar of five squares. The scale is 20,000 km, half the way around the Earth: 0 km would be 100%, and every 200 km takes off one point.

The row above is a first guess for the hidden country Mongolia. Russia and Mongolia share a long border, yet the row shows 1,635 km: the center point of Russia lies deep in Siberia, far from the border.

The squares fill in steps of 20%. Every full 20% is a green square, and a remainder of 10 or more adds a yellow one:

Only the right answer gets five green squares; even a close neighbor stays at 99% or less.

A full round, step by step

Here is a complete round. The hidden country is Kenya, and the shape alone did not give it away.

Nigeria is a reasonable start for an African-looking shape. The arrow points east, toward East Africa. Egypt, 3,084 km away, points south, so both arrows lead to the same part of Africa. Ethiopia is 1,060 km away and points south, Tanzania is 782 km away and points northeast. The answer must lie between Ethiopia and Tanzania, and Kenya wins on the fifth guess.

When six guesses are not enough

Island nations are harder, because a small shape in the ocean gives few clues. Here the hidden country is Fiji:

The last two guesses point at each other: Vanuatu to the east, Samoa to the west. Fiji lies between them, but all 6 guesses are used. When a round ends without the right answer, the game reveals it, and the round counts as a loss in your statistics.

The result card

Win or lose, the round ends with a result card. It shows the name of the country, a world map with the answer highlighted and your guesses as numbered dots, colored by how close they were. Tap a dot to see its name and distance. Two links open the country in Google Maps and Wikipedia.

Below that are the Share button, your statistics and, in the Daily Worldle, a countdown to the next country. In Practice there is a Next country button instead.

Bonus rounds

After the daily country you can play two optional bonus rounds, even if you did not find the country:

• Flag

  Pick the flag of the country from 4. The other three are flags of neighbors or flags that look similar.

• Capital

  Pick the capital from 4 cities. The other three are capitals from the same part of the world.

Each right answer earns a star, up to 2 a day. Your stars are shown on the result, added up in your statistics and included in the share text. If a territory has no flag of its own in the game or no clear capital, that round is skipped. In Practice you can play the flag round after each country.

Hide shape, rotate shape and units

The settings have two ways to make a round harder. With Hide shape the silhouette stays hidden, and you play with distances and arrows alone; the Show shape button reveals it if you get stuck. With Rotate shape the silhouette is turned by an angle that is the same for everyone that day; Cancel rotation turns it back. If you finish with the shape still hidden or rotated, the share text marks your result. Both settings apply from your next round, or at once if you have not guessed yet.

Distances can be shown in kilometers or miles. The game starts in miles in the United States, the United Kingdom, Liberia and Myanmar and in kilometers elsewhere, and you can switch at any time. Here is a round for Poland in miles:

The percentages are the same in both units.

Stats, streaks and previous days

The Stats button shows your daily statistics: games played, win percentage, current streak, best streak, a chart of how many guesses your wins took (1 to 6, plus X for losses), your average best distance and your bonus stars. Your streak grows with every day in a row on which you find the country. A lost round or a missed day starts it again.

You can also play any of the last 30 daily puzzles from the archive. Those rounds count in your history and statistics, but they never change your streak. Practice has separate statistics: rounds played, wins and average guesses.

Everything is saved in your browser after each guess. If you played on this site before, your old games and settings are read the first time you open the new version, so your stats and streak continue. An unfinished daily round of the old version continues too. The save stays on your device and does not move to another browser or phone.

The top bar

The top bar shows the name of the round, for example "Worldle #1751" on November 7, 2026, or "Practice", and a switch between the two modes. Its buttons open:

• Help: the rules with example guesses.
• Stats: your statistics and the archive of previous days.
• Settings: kilometers or miles, hide shape, rotate shape, dark theme, sound, vibration on phones, reduced motion and the language.
• Fullscreen: the game alone on the screen, without the rest of the page.

To find the answer in fewer guesses, read our Worldle tips.