How Distance Guess Works
Distance Guess is a fast, replayable world city distance quiz built around five random pairs per game. Each round challenges you to estimate the great-circle distance between two cities, then adjust from high-or-low feedback across up to three attempts. Unlike a one-off daily puzzle, it is designed for repeat play, difficulty progression, and score chasing.
Distance Guess vs Daily Challenge
| Feature | Distance Guess | Daily Challenge |
|---|
| Round structure | 5 random pairs per game | 1 fixed pair per day |
| Replayability | Unlimited runs | Resets every 24 hours |
| Difficulty | Easy / Medium / Hard | Same daily puzzle for everyone |
| Best use case | Practice and score improvement | Quick daily ritual |
If you want repetition, variety, and a larger city pool, Distance Guess is the better fit. If you prefer one shared puzzle per day with streaks, the Daily Challenge is the lighter mode.
Difficulty Comparison
| Level | City pool | Best for |
|---|
| Easy | Top 100 (capitals, megacities) | Warming up |
| Medium | Top 300 (regional hubs) | Most players |
| Hard | Top 500 (deep cuts) | Geography pros |
What Cities Appear in Distance Guess
The city pool is built from major world cities across six continents. Pairs are cross-country and at least 500 km apart, which keeps rounds focused on real geographic reasoning instead of trivial local guesses. Depending on difficulty, you can see familiar anchors like New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Sydney, Dubai, Singapore, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, São Paulo, Johannesburg, Beijing, Mumbai, Berlin, Madrid, Rome, Moscow, and San Francisco.
Easy mode leans toward capitals and megacities. Medium adds more regional hubs. Hard goes deeper into the top 500 cities, rewarding players who already have a strong mental map of the world.
Tips & Strategies
- Anchor on known distances. Memorize a handful: New York–London ≈ 5570 km, London–Tokyo ≈ 9570 km, Sydney–LA ≈ 12 070 km. Interpolate from there.
- Continental width as a ruler. The contiguous US is roughly 4500 km wide, mainland Europe roughly 4000 km, Australia roughly 4000 km.
- Latitude matters. At the equator, 1° of longitude ≈ 111 km. At 60° latitude, 1° ≈ 55 km. Poleward pairs are closer than they look on a Mercator map.
- Use the first guess wide. With high/low feedback and three attempts, a calibrated first guess followed by a binary-search second guess usually gets you inside 10%.
- Cross-continental defaults. Any Americas↔Europe pair is typically 5000–10 000 km. Europe↔East Asia is usually 7000–11 000 km.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Distance Guess?
Distance Guess is a browser-based city distance game. You see two random world cities and estimate the great-circle distance between them. You have three attempts per round, with high/low feedback after each guess, across five rounds.
How is my score calculated?
Each round is scored on your percent error from the true great-circle distance. A guess within 5% earns 1000 points, within 10% earns 900, within 20% earns 750, within 35% earns 500, within 50% earns 300. Each extra attempt beyond the first deducts 100 points. Maximum per round is 1000, maximum game is 5000.
What is great-circle distance?
Great-circle distance is the shortest distance between two points along the surface of a sphere. We compute it with the Haversine formula using an Earth radius of 6371 km, which is the standard used by aviation and navigation.
What do the three difficulty levels mean?
Easy uses the top 100 cities (mostly capitals and megacities). Medium uses the top 300 (includes well-known regional hubs). Hard uses the top 500 (adds less familiar but still sizeable cities). All pairs are cross-country and at least 500 km apart.
Can I challenge a friend?
Yes. After finishing a game, tap Challenge a Friend to copy a link encoding the exact same five city pairs. Your friend plays the identical rounds and you see a head-to-head score comparison at the end.
Is Distance Guess free?
Yes, it is completely free with no login required. Your stats and best score are stored locally in your browser.
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