About The Grid

Nine squares, nine guesses. Name a country that fits both its row and its column.

A daily 3×3 grid of country clues. Each square sits under a column clue and beside a row clue, things like a continent, a language, a flag colour or a river, and you need a country that fits both. Rare answers score more, so it pays to think past the obvious ones. If you've played GeoGrid, it's the same format: a 3×3 grid of country clues where rarer answers score better. (Geographys isn't affiliated with GeoGrid.)

How it works

1. 1Tap a square, then name a country that fits both its row and its column.
2. 2You have nine guesses. A wrong guess uses one up, but you can try the square again. Each country can be used once per board.
3. 3Rarer answers score more than obvious ones.
4. 4Tap any clue for an explanation and the full list of countries that fit it.

Tips

• Fill the tightest squares first. Each country can only be used once, and a square where two narrow clues cross may have just two or three answers. Spend an obvious country elsewhere and you can lose that square.
• Look past the first country that comes to mind. Points run from about 15 to 100 a square, depending on how obscure your answer is among the countries that fit, judged by population and area. Where South America meets the Atlantic coast, Brazil scores far less than Suriname.
• Read the clue's wording. Russia and Türkiye count as both European and Asian, and the Indian Ocean coast clue includes the Red Sea and Persian Gulf.
• A wrong guess still costs one of your nine, so tap a clue to check what it covers before guessing on a hunch.

Questions

What kinds of clues come up?

About 100 of them: continents, neighbours (borders Germany, borders DR Congo), population and area bands, official languages, currencies, memberships like the EU, NATO, OPEC, the Commonwealth and BRICS, coastlines, the Equator and Arctic Circle, rivers, deserts and mountain ranges, Olympic and World Cup hosts, details on the flag, and the first letter of a country or its capital. A board never has two clues of the same kind.

Can every board be finished?

Yes. Every square has at least two valid answers, and each board is checked to make sure all nine squares can be filled with nine different countries. Boards also avoid the clues used in the previous two days.

Where do the facts come from?

Populations are the World Bank's latest figures, and areas come from the world-countries dataset. Memberships and hosts follow each organisation's official list. Tap any clue to see every country that counts for it; if one looks wrong, tell us through the feedback page.

When is there a new board?

Every day at midnight where you are. Everyone gets the same board on the same date, and practice boards are random.

Countries that fit many clues

Some countries fit far more clues than others, which is why they score so little. A country spanning two continents counts for both, and one that's big, populous and on several coasts ticks a lot of boxes at once.

Small countries are where the points are. A microstate or an island nation might fit only a handful of clues, so on the squares where it does fit, it's often the rarest answer there is.

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