A daily border wiped from the map. Trace it back: the closer your line, the better. Each day's pair is two of the world's countries that share a border, and the line between them is the one to redraw.
A daily drawing puzzle. Two neighbouring countries are shown as one shape with the border between them wiped away, and you trace where it runs. Some borders follow rivers and mountain ridges; others are straight lines drawn on a map. Country borders link to a Learn article on how the line came about.
How it works
1The two places are drawn as one shape with the border between them wiped off.
2Drag across the map to trace where the border runs, then submit. Pan and zoom first to get it right.
3Your line snaps to the nearest outer border at each end, so trace as much of the length as you can.
4You're scored on how close your line sits to the real one and how much of it you covered.
Tips
Read the shape's edges. Where the outline pinches in, the border often runs between those two points.
Think about the land. Many borders follow rivers or ridgelines; in deserts and former colonies, many are straight lines.
Zoom in before you draw. A close view makes a winding river border much easier to follow.
Trace the whole length. Leaving part of the border undrawn costs as much as drawing it in the wrong place.
Questions
How is it scored?
Out of 100. Your line is compared to the real border over the stretch you covered: on the world map, a line about 20 km off on average scores about 90, and the score falls as the gap grows. Country maps are stricter, in step with their size. That's then scaled by how much of the border you traced, so drawing half of it caps you near 50.
Which borders come up?
Land borders between neighbouring countries, weighted toward familiar ones, and a pair doesn't repeat within six weeks.
When is there a new daily?
Every day at midnight where you are. Everyone gets the same puzzle on the same date, and practice rounds are random.
Why borders run where they do
Some borders follow the land: rivers like the Rio Grande between the United States and Mexico, or ridgelines like the Pyrenees between France and Spain. Others were ruled straight across the map, like the 49th parallel between the United States and Canada or the long straight lines across the Sahara, often agreed by people who had never seen the ground.
Lengths vary as much as shapes. The border between Canada and the United States runs for nearly 9,000 km, the longest in the world, while Spain and Morocco share a land border of only about 85 metres at Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera.