UK counties map quiz

Each question rests on one place, checked against the map's own outline of it. Asked by name, the place has to be tapped. A wrong tap flashes red and names the place it hit, so every miss teaches a neighbour. Colours keep score on the map: green for right first time, yellow for a later try, red for a miss.

In "Find it on the map" each place allows up to 3 tries. Repeat taps on a found place, or on the same wrong one, cost nothing. "Show the answer" gives a place up, and the map zooms up to 8 times, then moves with a drag. This county map game also has a "Hide the borders (harder)" box that draws only the outline of the UK.

"Pick the name from four" is the multiple choice version. The map highlights a place and offers 4 names, the wrong ones drawn from the 6 places nearest to it, so distance gives nothing away. Only one pick is allowed, and a wrong one counts as missed.

"Type the name" allows up to 3 tries and ignores capitals, accents, hyphens, spaces and a leading "the". Names of up to 4 letters must be exact; up to 9, one slip is forgiven, and longer names allow two, unless another place is as close. Short forms such as Hants and Notts count, as do Welsh names such as Ynys Môn.

"Learn the map" keeps no score: a tap shows a place's name and nation. The second map holds the four nations of the UK and can ask for London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast instead of the names. To find a capital, its dot or its nation may be tapped.

It uses England's 48 ceremonial counties, and for the other nations the areas their councils run. The English list follows Schedule 1 to the Lieutenancies Act 1997, as amended, and Ordnance Survey's guide to ceremonial county boundaries counts the same 48.

A ceremonial county is the area a Lord-Lieutenant serves, the office the Cabinet Office describes as "His Majesty's representative in the county". It is not a council. New single-tier councils took over in Dorset, Northamptonshire, Cumbria, North Yorkshire and Somerset between 2019 and 2023, and all 48 counties stayed as they were.

Put simply, the quiz asks for 113 places, one set from each nation. England contributes its 48 ceremonial counties, the lieutenancy areas of the Lieutenancies Act 1997, from Cornwall to Northumberland. Scotland adds its 32 council areas, Wales its 22 principal areas and Northern Ireland its 11 local government districts, each run by a single council. Old county names that no longer mark a boundary are left out, and so are the lieutenancy areas outside England. A round can take 10, 20 or every place in the UK, or keep to a single nation. Each place is tapped on the map, picked from 4 nearby names or typed, and the result counts how many were right at the first attempt.

The word county covers several maps of Britain, and the quiz uses one. The historic counties are the old shires, many centuries old, which mark no administrative boundary today. Middlesex is one: most of its land now lies in Greater London.

The metropolitan counties, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, West Midlands and West Yorkshire, have had no county council since 1986. Each is still a ceremonial county, and so a place on the map.

Unitary authorities are single councils that run every local service in their area, and many ceremonial counties now hold one or more of them. Every Scottish council area and every Welsh principal area works this way.

Wales also keeps eight preserved counties and Scotland 35 lieutenancy areas for their Lord-Lieutenants, and Northern Ireland has six counties beside its 11 districts. The map leaves them out and follows the councils.

Greater London, the county of the London boroughs, wraps round the City of London, the smallest county on the map. The City gets a dashed circle to tap, and "London" typed counts as Greater London.

Yorkshire is not one place here: the map has North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and East Riding of Yorkshire. Tyne and Wear, around Newcastle upon Tyne and Sunderland, is likewise its own county between Northumberland and Durham.

Stockton-on-Tees is where the drawing departs from the law. The Lieutenancies Act 1997 divides it at the River Tees, north in Durham and south in North Yorkshire. District outlines cannot follow that line, so the map draws it whole in Durham.

The Isles of Scilly are drawn with Cornwall, their ceremonial county, while the Isle of Wight is a county by itself. The Shetland Islands sit in a box, and Na h-Eileanan Siar also accepts Western Isles. Rutland is a county too, though not the smallest.

The Department for Education's national curriculum asks pupils at key stage 2 to "name and locate counties and cities of the United Kingdom". At key stage 1 it asks for the "4 countries and capital cities of the United Kingdom", which the nations map covers.

The "Nation" menu keeps a round to one nation, so each can be learnt on its own. Groupings such as the Home Counties can serve as memory aids, although the quiz groups places only by nation.

For the wider world, the flag quiz asks for countries with names to pick, names to type or flags to find.

"Print a blank map" prints the map in play with every place numbered and the answers on a second page. Numbers run from top to bottom, then left to right.

With one nation chosen, the sheet zooms to it and shades the rest grey. On the nations map the answers add each capital in brackets, and a line at the top leaves room for a name.

A round ends with its headline figure: the places right first time out of all those asked. The time, later finds and misses come next.

Rounds of up to 30 places add a line of coloured squares, and "Copy result" copies them with the score, the time and a link. A finished round is the new best for its settings when it has more right first time, or as many in less time. Practice rounds and rounds ended early never count.

"Copy link" shares only the settings, from map and mode to nation and round length, and the places are drawn afresh.

The outlines are the Office for National Statistics' Local Authority Districts boundaries of December 2025, in the ultra generalised edition. English counties are built by joining their districts, and the result is a simplified drawing, not an official map.

The data is used under the Open Government Licence. Its notices read "Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0" and "Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right".

The sources list every reference, each checked on 17 October 2026.