How to play
- Press Start. You have 2 minutes for all 14 countries.
- Type a country’s name. It counts as soon as it matches and turns green on the map; a country from another continent clears the box, with a note saying where it is.
- Pause whenever you like. When the time is up, the lists below the map show what you named and what you missed.
About the countries of Oceania
Oceania has the fewest countries of any continent in this series, 14, and by far the widest spread. Three are large: one fills its own continent, and two sit on large islands to its north and south-east. The rest are small island states scattered over millions of square kilometres of ocean, and most of them are marked with a circle on the map, because at this scale even whole archipelagos disappear.
The map is centred on the Pacific rather than on Greenwich, so the islands on both sides of the date line stay together. Geographers group the islands into three regions by geography and culture; going through them in turn, from the south-west to the north and then the east, is a good way not to miss one. Territories such as New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Guam and the Cook Islands aren’t answers.
More about the countries of Oceania (names some answers)
Australia is by far the largest country. Nauru, a single raised coral island, is the smallest; only Vatican City and Monaco are smaller in the whole world. Papua New Guinea shares its island with Indonesia, whose half counts in Asia. Kiribati is the only country in all four hemispheres. The three regions are Melanesia (Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu), Micronesia (Micronesia itself, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau) and Polynesia (Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, and New Zealand by geography).
Which countries count
Oceania here follows the UN’s grouping of countries: the continent’s mainland and the island states of the Pacific. Territories and dependencies aren’t answers, and land outside the quiz is shown in a lighter shade.
Spelling: capitals, accents, spaces and punctuation don’t matter, and well-known alternative names count.
The accepted alternative names appear here when your quiz ends, so they don’t give any answers away.
| Country | Also accepted |
|---|---|
| Micronesia | Federated States of Micronesia |
| Papua New Guinea | PNG |
Questions
Is Oceania a continent?
It is the name the UN and many atlases use for the continent’s mainland together with the Pacific islands, so it works as one here, even though most of it is ocean.
Why does this map look different from the others?
It is centred on the Pacific. On a map centred on Greenwich the date line runs through Oceania and cuts it in two, with some islands on the far left and the rest on the far right.
More geography
- Capitals of Oceania: the same countries, naming their capitals
- Countries of the World: all 197 at once
- Other continents: Countries of Africa, Countries of Asia, Countries of Europe, Countries of North America, Countries of South America
More to play
- Countries of the World: Type every country you can before the clock runs out.
- Capitals of the World: Name the capital of every country before the clock runs out.
- Periodic Table: Name every chemical element before the clock runs out.
- Flags of the World: Name the country from its flag.
- All quizzes
- El Trivia home