How to recognise major world landmarks

Landmark questions are scored on distance to the real spot, like city rounds. Because landmarks sit inside compact cities or clearly defined natural sites, a pin in the right city is usually a strong score, and only the final few hundred metres separate 900 from 1,000.

A few landmarks in the game are treated as whole areas rather than single points — the Sahara Desert, the Amazon Rainforest, the Great Barrier Reef, the Serengeti, the Everglades, the Okavango Delta, the Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Baikal and the Grand Canyon. For those, a click anywhere inside the area counts as a perfect answer.

• Paris — the Eiffel Tower on the south bank of the Seine, the Arc de Triomphe at the top of the Champs-Élysées, Notre-Dame on the Île de la Cité, and the glass pyramid of the Louvre.
• Rome — the Colosseum's elliptical shell just east of the Roman Forum, the Trevi Fountain, and the Pantheon's dome.
• London — the Elizabeth Tower and the Houses of Parliament on the north bank of the Thames — Big Ben is the bell, not the tower — plus Tower Bridge and Buckingham Palace.
• Spain — the Sagrada Família's spires in Barcelona, the Alhambra's palaces in Granada, and Park Güell's mosaic terraces above the city.
• Italy beyond Rome — the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the canals and St Mark's Square in Venice, Milan's spired Duomo, and Pompeii beneath Vesuvius.
• Central Europe — Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Cologne Cathedral, Prague's Charles Bridge, and Budapest's Parliament on the Danube.
• Northern Europe — Amsterdam's canal ring and the Anne Frank House, Copenhagen's Nyhavn and the Little Mermaid, Stockholm's Gamla Stan, and Reykjavík's Blue Lagoon.
• Greece and the Balkans — the Acropolis and Parthenon in Athens, Santorini's blue-domed Oia, and Dubrovnik's city walls on the Adriatic.
• Switzerland and Austria — the Matterhorn on the Swiss-Italian border, Lake Lucerne's chapel bridge, and Vienna's Schönbrunn Palace.

• India — the Taj Mahal's white marble dome and four minarets in Agra, the Red Fort and India Gate in Delhi, Hawa Mahal in Jaipur, and the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
• China — the Great Wall on the ridges north of Beijing, the Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven in the capital, the Terracotta Army near Xi'an, and Shanghai's Bund and Oriental Pearl Tower.
• Japan — Mount Fuji's symmetrical cone roughly 100 km south-west of Tokyo, Fushimi Inari's torii tunnels in Kyoto, and Tokyo's Shibuya crossing and Skytree.
• Southeast Asia — Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Borobudur on Java, Ha Long Bay in Vietnam, Bangkok's Grand Palace and Wat Arun, and Bagan's temple plain in Myanmar.
• Singapore and Malaysia — Marina Bay Sands and the Merlion in Singapore, and the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.
• Korea and Mongolia — Gyeongbokgung Palace and N Seoul Tower in Seoul, and Ulaanbaatar's Sukhbaatar Square beneath the steppe.
• Middle East — Petra's rock-cut Treasury in Jordan, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, the Kaaba in Mecca, and Istanbul's Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque.
• Natural and historic — the Dead Sea's shoreline between Israel and Jordan, Jerusalem's Western Wall, and the dunes of the Empty Quarter.

• Egypt — the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx just south-west of Cairo, and the temple complexes at Luxor and Abu Simbel.
• Southern Africa — Table Mountain above Cape Town, the Cape of Good Hope, Robben Island, and the dunes at Sossusvlei in Namibia.
• East Africa — Mount Kilimanjaro's snow-capped cone in Tanzania, the Serengeti's plains, the Ngorongoro Crater, the Maasai Mara in Kenya, and Zanzibar's Stone Town.
• Wildlife and water — Victoria Falls on the Zambezi between Zambia and Zimbabwe, the Okavango Delta in Botswana, and Lake Victoria's shoreline.
• North and West Africa — Marrakech's Jemaa el-Fnaa square and the blue streets of Chefchaouen in Morocco, and Lalibela's rock-hewn churches in Ethiopia.
• Sahara — the world's largest hot desert, spanning a dozen countries from Morocco to Egypt — in the game it counts as one large area.

• New York — the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island in the harbour, Times Square's screens, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building.
• United States west — the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles, the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and Yosemite's granite cliffs.
• United States east — the White House and Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, and Niagara Falls on the Canadian border.
• Mexico and Central America — Chichén Itzá's stepped pyramid in Yucatán, Teotihuacán's Avenue of the Dead near Mexico City, and the Panama Canal.
• Andean South America — Machu Picchu on its ridge above the Urubamba valley, the Nazca Lines, Lake Titicaca between Peru and Bolivia, and Quito's colonial centre.
• Brazil — Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado above Rio, Copacabana and Sugarloaf Mountain, and the Amazon Rainforest — another landmark the game treats as a whole area.
• Southern South America — Iguazu Falls on the Argentina-Brazil border, the Perito Moreno glacier, and Torres del Paine's granite towers in Chile.
• Islands — the moai statues of Easter Island, the Galápagos Islands' volcanic landscapes, and Cartagena's walled old town in Colombia.

• Sydney — the Opera House's white shells on Bennelong Point, the Harbour Bridge beside it, and Bondi Beach to the south-east.
• Australia's interior — Uluru's red monolith in the Northern Territory, and Kata Tjuta's domes nearby.
• Australia's coasts — the Great Barrier Reef off Queensland, the Twelve Apostles on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, and the Great Ocean Road's cliffs.
• New Zealand — Milford Sound's fiord walls in Fiordland, the Southern Alps, and Auckland's Sky Tower.
• The Pacific — Bora Bora's lagoon in French Polynesia, Fiji's coral coast, and the volcanic peaks of Samoa.

• Group by silhouette — towers, domes, bridges, pyramids, walls, natural features. Recognising a shape is faster than recalling a name.
• Chain landmark to city to country — three steps, always in the same order. Once the chain exists, the map position comes free.
• Learn the country, not just the building — if you can place the country, you have already earned hundreds of points even if the pin is off.
• Use the reveal — every landmark round shows you exactly where the real site is. That is a free correction you will keep.

Landmarks overlap heavily with cities, so the city-name patterns guide and this one reinforce each other. If you want the wider picture, reading the map for clues is the next step.