Can you name the countries on the opposte side of the world to the given landmark? by joebobs

Landmark	Country	Closest Point
Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia		Santa Maria, Azores Islands
Masjid al-Haram, Mecca, Saudi Arabia		Tematangi Atoll, French Polynesia
Saint Basil's Cathedral, Moscow, Russia		Raoul Island
Easter Island, Chile		Mokal, Rajasthan
Machu Picchu, Peru		Mondulkiri Province
Mount Fuji, Japan		Rio Grande, Rio Grande do Sul
Mouth of the Mississippi, Louisiana, USA		Geraldton, Western Australia
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe		Hawaii, Hawaii
Lake Baikal, Russia (taken from centre of lake)
Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands		Ascension Island

Javascript is not currently enabled on your browser.
If you do have Javascript enabled:
This site uses javascript to make the magic happen.
Please turn on javascript and reload this page, or use a more current browser (like Firefox)

Tunnel through the world! Quiz

by joebobs

Created Oct 11, 2010 in Geography
Game Plays 607

Friend Scores and Standings

Loading friend results....

Top Games Today in Geography

Top Games with Similar Tags

Top User Games in Geography

	joebobs:	Oct 11th, 2010 at 20:54 GMT	4 points
	Is the time limit ok? Also, do people think it would be better if you had to guess in order? Colour scheme ok? If people like the quiz format I can make a sequel.

	LaviniaB:	Oct 11th, 2010 at 20:58 GMT	1 point
	Great idea for a quiz!(May I just suggest that you make us guess them in order though)

	Jam1:	Oct 11th, 2010 at 21:10 GMT	1 point
	Loved the quiz, and had fun playing with the source! I was saddened to find out that if I dug a hole from my house I would end up in the middle of the ocean, miles from anywhere...

	remskray:	Oct 11th, 2010 at 21:16 GMT	2 points
	great quiz! really fun and some quite surprising answers. (france and saudi arabia...really??) staring at 2D maps really makes you forget actual global position. i think it's fine not having people guess in order and i would love to see a sequel!

	joebobs:	Oct 11th, 2010 at 21:35 GMT	3 points
	@ Jam1: Using that source really makes you realise that most of the Earth's crust is water! Only a couple of these actually hit land, the rest are done by the country they are closest to. @ remskray: By France, it includes all French territories, in this case French Polynesia. Thanks for the kind words both of you!

	dancastro:	Oct 11th, 2010 at 22:19 GMT	2 points
	Excellent game. For Lake Baikal, I thought "This one must be in Patagonia", so I decided to try first Argentina, then Chile. I typed Argentina, and Chile (the correct answer) appeared. For Mount Fuji, I thought "This one is in the South Atlantic, near South America"; I tried Uruguay first, and Brazil (the correct answer) appeared. I've never seen so a generous quiz that accepts wrong guesses as good! Please fix this, as well as the spellings of Machu Picchu and Ascension Island. Anyhow, I've rated it 5.

	joebobs:	Oct 11th, 2010 at 23:25 GMT	2 points
	Fixed those spellings, thanks for catching those! The reason I accepted Uruguay for that one is because the point is actually in the ocean, and the nearest land is Brazil, but it's very, very nearly Uruguay. There's only a couple of kilometres in it. For the other, I accepted Argentina as, if you went from a point slightly south of the centre of Lake Baikal, you'd come through in Argentina, so it seemed a bit miserly not to accept it. If people think I should I'll remove those alternative answers.

	dancastro:	Oct 12th, 2010 at 01:51 GMT	1 point
	Probably Uruguay could be accepted for Mt. Fuji, as the opposite point is in the ocean (although the difference in distances is somewhat larger: 1,002 km to Brazil and 1,123 km to Uruguay). But "digging" from anywhere in Lake Baikal you always come out in Chile or in the Pacific Ocean, never in Argentina. If you want to make a sequel, I think a more practical site is www.antipodemap.com. It shows directly the opposite point, without having to "dig the hole". (Of course you lose the surprise effect "where will I come out?").

	puckett86:	Oct 12th, 2010 at 05:06 GMT	2 points
	Not exactly a new concept (see http://www.sporcle.com/games/GarrryBrolsma/journeycenterearth for a pretty good example), but the source is so awesome! If I decide to dig a hole through the Earth from where I am, I'll remember to bring a life vest because I'll be in the Indian Ocean.

	joebobs:	Oct 12th, 2010 at 11:00 GMT	1 point
	Thanks for that dancastro, I'll remove Argentina. For any sequel I'll probably use the same site and then check it against the one you mentioned. @ puckett86: You know, I had a bit of a feeling I'd played this before, but I searched and searched and nothing came up. Ah well, this one has mostly different locations, and uses landmarks instead of cities, so it's a bit different.

	dancastro:	Oct 12th, 2010 at 15:14 GMT	2 points
	@puckett86: yes, that happens from anywhere in the 48 states. In old American comic strips and animated cartoons, when the character appeared at the other side of the world there was always a Chinese man near (with long, thin moustaches and a conical hat, of course). Actually, this is only true for the majority of Chile and Argentina (but not for Buenos Aires; I'll end in the Yellow Sea too).

	dancastro:	Oct 12th, 2010 at 15:30 GMT	5 points
	A curious thing about antipodes: the island of Taiwan was formerly known as Formosa. If you dig the hole from Taipei, where do you end? In the Argentine province of Formosa. (Not too a marvelous coincidence: the Portuguese feminine adjective "formosa" means "beautiful". Simply, Portuguese explorers at opposite sides of the world liked the places and gave them the same name).

	joebobs:	Oct 12th, 2010 at 16:50 GMT	3 points
	That's still a pretty amazing coincidence! It's evidence of the huge reach of Portuguese explorers.

	paulio_ham:	Apr 11th, 2011 at 22:50 GMT	1 point
	Great quiz, i really enjoyed trying to work these out. However, I have to admit I wasn't thinking of island territories when picturing which countries it might be, and only got France by guessing for a different answer. Couldn't you choose some different points for the first two that are easier to work out, i.e. not overseas territories, especially if you change it to answer in order?

	paulio_ham:	Apr 11th, 2011 at 22:54 GMT	1 point
	Ok apologies I just noticed your game note which explicitly says "includes territories" and so should have alerted me to that. Still though I'm not so good on my overseas territories precise locations...

	joebobs:	Apr 15th, 2011 at 12:51 GMT	1 point
	@ paulio: I did think about this when making the quiz, and it makes it a lot more interesting to include territories. The thing is, the vast majority of places have ocean on the other side of the world (the surface of the globe being two-thirds water, plus the fact that most of the land is in the northern hemisphere). To balance out that fact to make the quiz playable, the only option is to use island states, and, for historical reasons, many of those states are in fact territories. So I'm afraid it's unavoidable if we want to have more than 4 answers! :p

	cheesenewyorkbob:	Jun 11th, 2011 at 19:06 GMT	1 point
	No pretty boring. You've been cnyb'ed. Laters