Flick the card

A country appears on a card. Sort it north or south of the equator, or into the Eastern or Western Hemisphere, by flicking the card, tapping a button or using the arrow keys. East and west are split by the prime meridian through Greenwich and by the 180° line on the far side of the globe. After each answer a globe shows the country and the line. Ten cards make a round.

Where the lines run through countries

The game knows 27 countries that sit on both sides of a line. Brazil, Indonesia, Kenya, Uganda, Gabon, Somalia, Colombia and Ecuador straddle the equator; Spain, Algeria, Mali, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands straddle the prime meridian; the United States and Russia straddle the 180° line through their Aleutian and Chukchi tips. France, Norway and Kiribati are on both sides of both lines, France through its overseas departments and Norway through Bouvet Island.

Easy asks 180 clear-cut questions about the 100 best-known countries and never asks a straddler. Medium adds a “Both sides” answer, the 150 countries up to Hard difficulty and three near-miss or straddling cards a round, for 299 questions in all. Hard uses every country, 389 questions, with five tricky cards a round and overseas islands counted. Notes on 49 countries explain the close calls, such as the equator crossing the mouth of the Amazon near Macapá.