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The hardest countries and capitals to guess: 2,051 wins
Malawi is the hardest country in DailyGeo: 8.4 guesses on average, and 98% of solvers needed four guesses or more. Monrovia is the hardest capital (7.5). Mexico and the United States are the easiest countries (3.2 and 3.3 guesses), Wellington and Oslo the easiest capitals. The median player solves a capital in 5 guesses and 73 seconds.
DailyGeo sets one mystery country and one mystery capital a day, the same ones for everybody. This page counts what players actually did with them: 2,051 won games across 1,216 sessions, from 2026-08-27 to 2026-09-15. No difficulty rating here is assigned by hand. Every figure comes out of the game's own calendar.
Which countries are the hardest to guess?
| Country | Wins | Avg guesses | Needed 4+ guesses | Median time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Malawi | 48 | 8.4 | 98% | 92 s |
| Azerbaijan | 53 | 7.0 | 87% | 74 s |
| Djibouti | 62 | 6.9 | 86% | 73 s |
| Kazakhstan | 39 | 6.9 | 64% | 67 s |
| Tajikistan | 59 | 6.7 | 86% | 85 s |
| Nicaragua | 55 | 6.5 | 87% | 61 s |
| North Macedonia | 32 | 6.4 | 91% | 100 s |
| Ecuador | 36 | 6.2 | 83% | 58 s |
| Pakistan | 36 | 5.8 | 83% | 81 s |
| Yemen | 36 | 5.5 | 81% | 58 s |
| Dominican Republic | 45 | 5.3 | 82% | 64 s |
| Italy | 34 | 4.3 | 50% | 46 s |
| Algeria | 48 | 4.3 | 56% | 38 s |
| Poland | 35 | 4.2 | 46% | 36 s |
| United States | 43 | 3.3 | 40% | 23 s |
| Mexico | 51 | 3.2 | 29% | 31 s |
Which capitals are the hardest to guess?
| Capital | Wins | Avg guesses | Needed 4+ guesses | Median time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monrovia | 53 | 7.5 | 87% | 97 s |
| Abu Dhabi | 97 | 6.3 | 87% | 80 s |
| Niamey | 57 | 6.3 | 91% | 82 s |
| Muscat | 129 | 6.1 | 85% | 95 s |
| Bratislava | 69 | 6.0 | 77% | 71 s |
| Manila | 80 | 6.0 | 91% | 75 s |
| Abuja | 33 | 5.8 | 88% | 96 s |
| Bissau | 57 | 5.7 | 90% | 102 s |
| Baku | 94 | 5.7 | 82% | 78 s |
| Malabo | 53 | 5.7 | 77% | 100 s |
| Asmara | 61 | 5.6 | 84% | 80 s |
| Port-au-Prince | 88 | 5.4 | 81% | 82 s |
| Singapore | 93 | 5.3 | 82% | 62 s |
| Nicosia | 68 | 5.2 | 71% | 72 s |
| N'Djamena | 51 | 5.1 | 73% | 77 s |
| Port Moresby | 40 | 4.7 | 75% | 66 s |
| Oslo | 87 | 3.9 | 51% | 29 s |
| Wellington | 61 | 3.6 | 39% | 36 s |
The in-game map, which players can open after their first guess, follows the same slope: 49% of solvers opened it on Malabo and 2% on Mexico. Overall it is opened in 30% of Capitals wins and 17% of Countries wins. That is a curiosity, not a judgement: the map is part of the game.
Which are the easiest?
| Answer | Mode | Wins | Avg guesses | Needed 4+ guesses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mexico | Countries | 51 | 3.2 | 29% |
| United States | Countries | 43 | 3.3 | 40% |
| Wellington | Capitals | 61 | 3.6 | 39% |
| Oslo | Capitals | 87 | 3.9 | 51% |
| Poland | Countries | 35 | 4.2 | 46% |
Why are these hard?
- Capitals of small or less covered states. Monrovia, Bissau, Malabo and Asmara all sit near the top of the table. They appear rarely in news coverage and in school atlases.
- Capitals that are not the largest city. Abu Dhabi (not Dubai) and Abuja (not Lagos) take 6.3 and 5.8 guesses: players try the city they know first.
- Landlocked Central Asian states. Kazakhstan and Tajikistan share language, currency and neighbours with the states next door, so the clues a guess returns look much the same from one attempt to the next.
- Caribbean and Central American states. Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic get confused with their neighbours: the distance clue closes quickly and the name arrives late.
- Very familiar countries go fast. Mexico and the United States fall in 3.2 and 3.3 guesses, partly because many players use them as an opening probe.
How the game works, and what a guess reveals
Every guess is compared with the day's answer and returns distance, direction, language, currency and population. Countries mode adds flag colours and shared borders. There is no guess limit, which is why an average can sit above six. In Capitals mode the average is 5.6 guesses against a median of 5; in Countries mode it is 5.8 against a median of 5.
How this was measured
- Source: Umami game_win events, dailygeo.live, from 2026-08-27 to 2026-09-15.
- Dedupe: 3,707 raw events reduced to 2,207 by one rule, one win per session, mode and answer (the event fires twice on some clients).
- Exclusions: wins recorded with fewer than one guess (156), which a guess board cannot produce, leaving 2,051 valid wins across 1,216 sessions.
- Sample floor: 30 plays before an answer appears in a table.
- Survivorship: the event fires only on a win, so a hard answer is measured on the players who stayed to the end. The true difficulty of the top rows is understated, not overstated.
- One-day cohorts: each answer was the puzzle on exactly one day, so a row mixes that answer's difficulty with whoever happened to play that day.
- This page will be refreshed as the data grows: more days, and more answers above the sample floor.
What this means for learners and teachers
The top of each table is a ready-made revision list: those are the answers that resist. For a lesson, geography games for the classroom sets out the five-minute routine, the list of world capitals carries the figures behind every city, and how to memorize world capitals covers spaced review.
Sources and method
- DailyGeo's own win events, collected with Umami and described in the privacy policy.
- The game that produces those events: DailyGeo Capitals and DailyGeo Countries, at dailygeo.live.
- Figures published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.
The short answer
Across 2,051 won games between 2026-08-27 and 2026-09-15, Malawi took 8.4 guesses on average and Monrovia took 7.5, against 3.2 for Mexico.
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Play today's DailyGeo puzzleFrequently asked questions
What is the hardest capital to guess?
Monrovia, at 7.5 guesses on average across 53 wins, with 87% of solvers needing more than three guesses.
What is the hardest country to guess?
Malawi, at 8.4 guesses on average across 48 wins. Second hardest is Azerbaijan at 7.0.
How many guesses does it take to solve DailyGeo?
5 guesses is the median for a capital (5.6 on average) and 5 for a country (5.8). Median solve time in Capitals mode is 73 seconds.
Is the data updated?
This version covers 2026-08-27 to 2026-09-15. The page will be rebuilt as the sample grows, and the update date at the top of the article tells you which version you are reading.
Can I use these numbers?
Yes, under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence: credit DailyGeo and link to this page. If you reuse a table, keep the sample size next to it.
Today's puzzle
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