How to play
- 1You start on a map 500 metres across with every name taken off. Type a city and pick it from the list.
- 2If you're wrong, you see how far your guess is from the hidden city and a needle pointing toward it. The map zooms out one step.
- 3Not sure? Zoom out yourself. It costs 1 point, and a wrong guess costs 2. You start with 12.
- 4There are six steps, from a few streets to the whole country. Name the city before you run out.
The six zoom steps
Each step is wider than the last, and each one shows a different kind of clue.
| Step | Width | What you can see |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 500 m | A few blocks. Street pattern, a bridge, a canal, the shape of a square. |
| 2 | 2 km | The centre. Grid or tangle, the river bend, the main park, the station. |
| 3 | 10 km | The whole city. Ring roads, the port, the airport, where it stops. |
| 4 | 50 km | The metro area and its terrain. Coast, mountains, the lake it sits on. |
| 5 | 250 km | The region, and the other cities near it. |
| 6 | 1,500 km | The country and its neighbours. By now it's a long shot. |
Zoom Out FAQ
What am I looking at?
A real map of a real city with every name taken off. Streets, coastline, parks, railways and water are where they are in the world, so the only way to know the place is by its shape.
How many cities are in the game?
About 2,150 cities can be typed as an answer. The daily picks from about 510 well-known ones: the biggest cities in each country, every capital and a hand-picked list of famous smaller places. Unlimited has a World mode with about 1,800 cities, Europe with about 500 and the USA with about 270.
How is the score worked out?
You start with 12 points. A wrong guess costs 2 and zooming out costs 1. Name the city at the first look and you keep all 12. A solve never scores less than 1.
Does a wrong guess tell me anything?
Yes. You see how far your guess is from the hidden city in a straight line, and a needle pointing from your guess toward it. The map also zooms out one step. A wrong guess costs 2 points, zooming out costs 1, so guess when the hint would help you.
How does the leaderboard work?
Only the daily has one. Name today's city and you can add your name. More points rank higher. If two players have the same points, the faster one ranks higher, timed from when the map first appeared. You get one try a day.
Will the daily city repeat?
Not for a long time. The daily goes through about 510 cities in a fixed order, so a city comes back only after all the others have had their day.
Why is the population sometimes lower than I expected?
Populations come from GeoNames, which counts the city proper rather than the metro area. Venice reads as about 51,000 because that is the historic centre, not the 250,000 of the wider comune.
Where do the maps come from?
OpenStreetMap data drawn by OpenFreeMap, with every name taken off and the colours changed to match this site. City names, coordinates and populations come from GeoNames.
More daily games
Sources
Maps: OpenStreetMap data drawn by OpenFreeMap.
Cities, coordinates and populations: GeoNames (CC BY 4.0).
Last updated: 9 October 2026