Where in the USA is this?

About Where in the USA is this?

The game draws on about half a million geotagged images from Wikimedia Commons. Each day it picks a random location in the United States and five photos taken within five miles of that point. You start with the first photo, which might be a mountain road, a main street or a museum exhibit, and open the map to drop a guess.

Each guess unlocks the next photo, so the picture of the place builds up as you go. Your guess tiles are coloured by distance, with bands for close to zero, 100, 200 and over 200 miles. You have five guesses, and your stats record the games you have played, your average best guess and the spread of your distances.

The photos are real snapshots uploaded by Wikimedia contributors, not curated landmarks, so the clues are often ordinary: road signs, plants, rock, architecture and weather. Attribution for each photo is available behind a spoiler button. It comes from The Pudding, the site of visual essays, and suits players who like GeoGuessr-style detective work on a smaller scale.

How to play Where in the USA is this?

1. Open the game and look at the first photo.
2. Press Show map to guess and place a pin where you think the photos were taken.
3. See how far off you were, by the tile's colour, and look at the newly revealed photo.
4. Use each new photo to refine your guess, up to five guesses.
5. Check your stats and come back tomorrow for a new place.

Screenshots

Tips

• Read the landscape first: desert, pine forest, prairie and coast each narrow the region.
• Look for text in the photos: road signs, shop names and licence plates give away states.
• Use the distance colour of your first guess to decide whether to move far or stay close.
• Avoid opening the attribution until you are done; it can name the place.

Questions