DAILY NO. 1 · VERIFIED MEASUREMENTS
The September 22, 2026 puzzle ran from Great Britain at 1,000 km to Greenland at 2,670 km — about 3× apart, drawing on geography. The pair furthest apart was round 4: Great Britain is about 2.7× smaller than Greenland.
Puzzle #1 asked about California, Texas, Greenland, Great Britain and metropolitan France. Each answer below gives the measured size, the reference it stood beside and the source behind the number. Want the surprise first? Replay this puzzle — archived days never touch your streak.
Answer: California — 1,240 km. California measures 1,240 km (height), which is almost exactly the same size as the reference, Italy at 1,200 km.
California is roughly 1,240 kilometres from north to south.
Common miss: players tend to compress California when it sits beside Italy — big things get squeezed, small familiar things get stretched.
Answer: Texas — 1,270 km. Texas measures 1,270 km (length / span), which is 1.3× as big as the reference, metropolitan France at 1,000 km.
Texas stretches about 1,270 kilometres east to west.
Common miss: players tend to compress Texas when it sits beside metropolitan France — big things get squeezed, small familiar things get stretched.
Answer: Greenland — 2,670 km. Greenland measures 2,670 km (height), which is 2.2× as big as the reference, California at 1,240 km.
The span is real, but Mercator maps still inflate Greenland’s area by about fourteen times.
Common miss: players tend to compress Greenland when it sits beside California — big things get squeezed, small familiar things get stretched.
Answer: Great Britain — 1,000 km. Great Britain measures 1,000 km (height), which is about 2.7× smaller than the reference, Greenland at 2,670 km.
About the straight-line distance from Land’s End to John o’ Groats.
Common miss: players tend to inflate Great Britain when it sits beside Greenland — big things get squeezed, small familiar things get stretched.
Answer: Metropolitan France — 1,000 km. Metropolitan France measures 1,000 km (length / span), which is about 1.3× smaller than the reference, Texas at 1,270 km.
Metropolitan France is nicknamed the Hexagon; no side of it runs much beyond 1,000 km.
Common miss: players tend to inflate metropolitan France when it sits beside Texas — big things get squeezed, small familiar things get stretched.
Sizes are measured along the axis named in each round and link to their published source. Explore the full library by category, or read how scoring works.