As many students prepare to head back to classes, I am reminded of the things I loved learning in school, and which have proven exceptionally valuable ever since. One of those is geography. Adult life pulls us away from the dedicated kind of learning that keeps us up to date, so it feels difficult to keep track of things like countries around the world, although they are in the news every day.
I have a favorite site bookmarked which I visit regularly to keep my knowledge sharp and constantly learn new things; I think you will enjoy it as much as I do. It has a massive choice of interactive quizzes which you can set up in formats from easy to quite difficult, and there is such an array of quizzes that I can’t imagine mastering all of them. And, it is one of my favorite four-letter F-words: FREE.
Seterra - The Ultimate Map Quiz Site
(Note: This link is to the home page or “All,” and I swear that I would have listed the tabs alphabetically, not starting with the U.S. and North America, as if they are the the most important! Most Americans are exhausted and angry at the regime’s insanity, corruption, attempts to dismantle democracy, bloviating narcissism, and generally disgusting behavior. Our sincere apologies to the rest of the world. We’re working on it…please bear with us while we are under Reconstruction again, like it’s 1865.)
Here is the choice of global regions:
Just within Europe, here are the options:
So, just when I think I’m a smartypants because I’ve correctly identified all the countries in Europe on a blank map, I can feel ignorant all over again by challenging myself to identify its major rivers. I think: Ok, I can do this: Rhine, Rhône, Thames, Danube…Volga; that must be most of them!
Yeah, nope. Five out of eighteen. Not so smartypants now!
Actually, I feel lucky to remember my -stans on the map of Asia:
BTW, what does the suffix -stan mean, anyway?
From The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica:
The -stan suffix, and also sta and -istan, occur in various languages as markers of place. In Persian and Urdu, -stan means “where one stands” or “place of.” The Indo-European root word sta is used to signify “stands” and “settlement,” and this root still appears in Russian. The construction -istan appears in Persian and means “land.” So, the word Tajikistan means essentially “land of the Tajiks.”
The thing I find most rewarding about knowing exactly where every country on the globe is located and who its neighbors are, is having an immediate visual context to world news.
For example, on Friday, (August 7, 2026), Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed an agreement similar to NATO’s Article 5, pledging that a strike against one of them would be considered a strike against all of them. I did not have to wonder where each was, nor look it up.
Similarly, I can sketch with some basic degree of recognition, the shape of Ukraine, along with correctly labeling the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, and the bridge at Kerch. I think about which Ukrainian oblasts have a higher percentage of Ukrainian and Russian speakers, and how that impacts the people who live there during this cruel war. It is incredible that there are no less than SEVEN countries bordering Ukraine, and I can picture them in my head in order, starting in the south: Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Belarus, and Russia. Again, this is not to be hubrisy, but to show what a key this kind of knowledge unlocks, not unlike knowing the alphabet before words can be built, then sentences, then the magic of reading.
In addition, a deep comprehension of history is inextricably linked with geography. Learning names of inland seas around the Mediterranean leads me down some fascinating historical rabbit holes. For example, why is the Ionian Sea between Greece and Italy, if the ancient lands of Ionia were on the western coast and islands of Turkey?
The results enrich my understanding of everything. I don’t know what else I can say that about. (And yes, it’s perfectly fine to start a sentence with “and” and end it with a preposition!)
Have FUN, and enjoy your new mastery!
Cheers!
~ Kate
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