13 OBJECTS · 21.6 km TO 8,000 km

Size It Up: Geography

Geography compares countries, states and islands by their longest span. Map projections have taught everyone that Greenland is huge and Africa is modest, and this category exists to correct that. Japan next to Italy, Texas next to metropolitan France — the true spans are often not what the wall map suggested.

The Geography set holds 13 measured objects, from Manhattan Island at 21.6 km to Africa at 8,000 km — the numbers on this page cover a factor of about 370. Each one is measured on the axis the game scores: standing height for things you would walk up to, longest visible span for everything else. Every size below links to the published measurement it came from.

THE NUMBERS

How big are these, really?

All 13 objects in the Geography set, smallest to largest. Each rung is compared with the one below it, so the category reads as a single ladder rather than a list of unrelated figures.

21.6 km

Manhattan Island height

Manhattan Island: Manhattan is about 21.6 kilometres long. Source ↗

150 km

Hawaiʻi Island length / span

Hawaiʻi Island: The Big Island is larger than all the other Hawaiian islands combined, and still growing. Source ↗

1,000 km

Metropolitan France length / span

Metropolitan France is nicknamed the Hexagon; no side of it runs much beyond 1,000 km. About 6.7× the length of Hawaiʻi Island. Source ↗

1,000 km

Great Britain height

Great Britain: About the straight-line distance from Land’s End to John o’ Groats. About 46× the height of Manhattan Island. Source ↗

1,200 km

Italy height

Italy’s long axis is why the Alps and Sicily belong to the same country. About 1.2× the height of Great Britain. Source ↗

1,240 km

California height

California is roughly 1,240 kilometres from north to south. Practically the same height as Italy. Source ↗

1,270 km

Texas length / span

Texas stretches about 1,270 kilometres east to west. About 1.3× the length of metropolitan France. Source ↗

2,670 km

Greenland height

Greenland: The span is real, but Mercator maps still inflate Greenland’s area by about fourteen times. About 2.2× the height of California. Source ↗

3,000 km

Japan height

Japan’s island arc extends around 3,000 kilometres. About 1.1× the height of Greenland. Source ↗

4,000 km

Australia length / span

Australia is nearly as wide as the contiguous United States, with a tenth of the population. About 3.1× the length of Texas. Source ↗

4,320 km

Brazil length / span

Brazil is almost exactly as wide as it is tall — roughly 4,300 km either way. About 1.1× the length of Australia. Source ↗

4,500 km

Contiguous United States length / span

Contiguous United States: The lower 48 stretch roughly 4,500 kilometres coast to coast. Practically the same length as Brazil. Source ↗

8,000 km

Africa height

Africa spans roughly 8,000 kilometres from north to south. About 2.7× the height of Japan. Source ↗

PLAY IT

Play the Geography set

Reading the numbers is one thing; sizing them by eye against a reference silhouette is another.

The daily puzzle mixes every category, so these objects turn up there at random. For a set built only from them, Unlimited deals five of them at a time, as often as you like. Unlimited is practice: it is unranked and never touches the daily leaderboard. New to the game? How to play covers the rules and the 0–500 scoring in two minutes.

KEEP GOING

Other categories

Every category has its own page of measured sizes. Landmarks and space produce the biggest scale shocks; sports and everyday objects are the fairest places to calibrate your eye.