Can you name the countries by the length of the border they share? by tahitiwahini

Can you name the countries by the length of the border they share?

created by tahitiwahini

Enter a bordering country in the box below
Correctly named countries will show up below
Answers MUST be guessed in order
Source: CIA World Factbook 2010
The border length given is a clue as to which country is visited next. No country is visited more than once, but I tried to visit as many countries as possible. Enter CANADA as the first country.
Abbreviate with Confidence™ This guiz supports Multi-Word Abbreviations (see comments) and all the commonly accepted Sporcle country name alternatives: http://www.sporcle.com/games/tahitiwahini/common_country_name_alternatives Additional border-related quizzes: http://www.sporcle.com/games/tahitiwahini/around_world_2_by_border_length http://www.sporcle.com/games/tahitiwahini/bordering_medium_countries_1 http://www.sporcle.com/games/tahitiwahini/bordering_medium_countries_2 http://www.sporcle.com/games/tahitiwahini/bordering_medium_countries_3 http://www.sporcle.com/games/tahitiwahini/bordering_medium_countries_4 http://www.sporcle.com/games/tahitiwahini/bordering_medium_countries_5
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Show Missed Answers

Border Length	--- Country --- (no repeats)
CANADA to start?
6,416 km?
3,141 km?
250 km?
266 km?
203 km?
342 km?
922 km?
309 km?
330 km?
225 km?
590 km?
1,420 km?
171 km?
860 km?
750 km?
1,880 km?
580 km?
1,068 km?
2,200 km?
743 km?
600 km?
510 km?
57 km?
64 km?
6 km?
1,559 km?
965 km?
459 km?
1,055 km?
1,175 km?
821 km?

Border Length	--- Country --- (no repeats)
2,237 km?
813 km?
338 km?
386 km?
652 km?
306 km?
716 km?
668 km?
877 km?
126 km?
306 km?
773 km?
1,690 km?
189 km?
350 km?
1,903 km?
467 km?
1,577 km?
2,511 km?
1,110 km?
797 km?
813 km?
1,360 km?
967 km?
430 km?
105 km?
1,569 km?
475 km?
451 km?
290 km?
169 km?
933 km?

Border Length	--- Country --- (no repeats)
682 km?
58 km?
109 km?
912 km?
1,606 km?
1,273 km?
266 km?
79 km?
375 km?
375 km?
744 km?
222 km?
240 km?
1,458 km?
992 km?
379 km?
2,203 km?
1,099 km?
870 km?
1,206 km?
2,430 km?
2,912 km?
4,053 km?
193 km?
1,800 km?
803 km?
1,228 km?
2,130 km?
423 km?
1,416 km?
19 km?
723 km?

Border Length	--- Country --- (no repeats)
322 km?
566 km?
268 km?
206 km?
494 km?
608 km?
450 km?
940 km?
90 km?
676 km?
166 km?
352 km?
159 km?
151 km?
172 km?
225 km?
932 km?
455 km?
199 km?
430 km?
35 km?
41 km?
334 km?
815 km?
615 km?
605 km?
680 km?
576 km?
343 km?

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World's Longest Borders	China's Borders	Russia's Borders

There are 21 comments for this game.
(Warning: comments may contain spoilers)

Around the World (Border by Border) Quiz

by tahitiwahini

Created Jan 14, 2011 in Geography
Game Plays 703

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	nicopin:	Jan 14th, 2011 at 22:19 GMT		5 points
	Excellent quiz!

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 14th, 2011 at 22:20 GMT		2 points
	This quiz was inspired by two from biner: http://www.sporcle.com/games/biner/europeonce and http://www.sporcle.com/games/biner/europeonce2 While those two are focused on Europe, this quiz covers 125 countries of the world (as many as I could figure out how to get to following only land borders). The basic rules are the same for all three quizzes. One difference is that this quiz gives the border length as a hint to guide the user to the next country.

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 14th, 2011 at 22:47 GMT		2 points
	To recap those rules: You are given a country to start from. You guess the next country given a clue about the length of the border they share. You may not revisit the same country (no repeats). My intention was to visit as many countries as possible as allowed under those rules. Given those constraints it's not possible to visit all countries (e.g., countries that have only 1 border can only be visited at the start or at the end, and of course island countries are out as well). Also, there are some geographical bottlenecks such as in the Arabian peninsula where it's impossible to cover all the countries in the region. How do you visit Yemen, Oman, UAE, and Qatar, when you have to go through Saudi Arabia to get to any of them? A similar problem exists with Mongolia and North Korea. Since both of them are bordered by only two countries, and they happen to be the same two countries (China and Russia), it's impossible to visit both Mongolia and North Korea on the same circuit (under the assumptions given earlier) unless you begin or end your journey in either Mongolia or North Korea (or indeed South Korea). It would be interesting to see if anyone is able to visit more than 125 countries, perhaps by starting and finishing in different countries from the ones I choose.

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 14th, 2011 at 23:02 GMT		1 point
	@nicopin: Thanks for the kind words! I hope the quiz is fun to play. I can assure you it was great fun to create. It's really aroused my curiosity about whether it's possible to visit more than 125 countries following the no-repeat visit rule. I don't know if there's a mathematical way to figure it out rather than brute force trial and error. In a way it's sort of similar to the Travelling Salesman problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem

	thedpr:	Jan 15th, 2011 at 00:42 GMT		3 points
	Glad to see someone tried this! Some suggestions for getting more countries in there: 1) Put Turkey and the Caucasus nations in between Iraq and Iran. This way Russia is free for other things like the Baltic nations. 2) Go east from France. This picks up the low countries; you can clean up most of Europe save Scandinavia (and Turkey, as mentioned before), hit Russia and east Asia, then come back to Africa and finish by jumping to Spain and Portugal.

	FreakyFlyBry:	Jan 15th, 2011 at 04:02 GMT		2 points
	Great quiz! Once I saw the European border quizzes, I was thinking of making one like this but saw someone else already did! The solution I came up with was similar to thedpr's, going from France through Luxembourg, then Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and sweep Europe from there, through Asia and Africa and ending in Portugal. Interestingly enough, you can use Turkey as either European or Asian only if you wish instead of linking between the two; turns out Iran is a more critical link here due to the Caspian Sea in the way, so you have to go through Russia out of Europe and Iran out of Asia or else you're stuck!

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 15th, 2011 at 04:02 GMT		1 point
	@thedr: Thanks for your suggestions about covering more countries. Your first suggestion didn't make any difference. There's a bottleneck in Asia consisting of Russia, Caspian Sea, and Iran. The fact that Russia is so large and borders so many countries (14) means that however Russia is put into the circuit it's going to leave some countries out in the cold. Your second suggestion, however, did get me an extra three countries. By trading Andorra for the Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg) I gained two countries net. Your second suggestion also made me realize that I should always start and finish in a country with only one border. That is, the only time you can visit a one border country is as the first country in the path or the last country in the path. So in this quiz I was wasting an opportunity by ending in Estonia which isn't a country having only one border. In the new quiz I start in Portugal which is a one border country and end in Canada which is also a one border country. So that gets me one additional country. The new quiz visits 127 countries. It can be found here: http://www.sporcle.com/games/tahitiwahini/around_world_2_by_border_length

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 15th, 2011 at 04:14 GMT		1 point
	@FreakyFlyBoy: lol, our posts came out simultaneously. You are quite right about the Russia, Caspian Sea, Iran bottleneck. It's a real problem. I agree the only entrance into and exit out of Asia are through the Russia and Iran corridors. This was one quiz that was much more interesting to analyze and create than it was for me to play ;-) Although maybe that's true of most quizzes one creates.

	dino566:	Jan 15th, 2011 at 07:22 GMT		2 points
	very nice quiz,even better then Europe edition

	thedpr:	Jan 15th, 2011 at 13:49 GMT		2 points
	The reason you had to end in Estonia was precisely because Russia had been used to get at the Caucasus. :)

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 15th, 2011 at 14:46 GMT		2 points
	@thedpr: You're right about this quiz and why I ended up in Estonia. However, in the new quiz I do follow your first suggestion (not using Russia to gather in the Caucasus countries), I just don't think it solved the real problem, which is with Russia itself (or rather the sheer size of Russia and the fact that it borders 14 countries). Because of the Caspian Sea there are only two routes to the Far East, two countries one of which you must pass through to get there and one of which you must pass through to get out. In the new quiz, Around the World 2, I use Iran to get from the Middle East to the Far East and Russia to get back from the Far East to Europe. Because you can only use Russia once I had to decide whether to plunder Scandinavia or go for the rest of Europe. It was an easy choice, there are many more countries available in rest of Europe. Because Russia and China are the only countries that border Mongolia and North Korea, you'll never be able to include both in the same circuit unless you start or end in one of them. There's just too much to do in Asia and you only get to accomplish one purpose with Russia. Also, I think if you're doing the whole world you've got to start (or end) in Canada, it's really the only way to capture all of North America. Also, it seems to me you've got to start (or stop) in some country around France because since you have to use France (and French Guiana) to teleport, as it were, to the New World, you can't actually go through France to pick up the rest of target rich Europe. I'm almost convinced it's not possible to cover more than 128 countries, but I'm willing to be proved wrong if someone would like to give it a try.

	kfox:	Jan 16th, 2011 at 02:24 GMT		2 points
	This quiz was fantastic. Just wanted to let you know that you spelled United States of America incorrectly. Nice job though.

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 16th, 2011 at 04:13 GMT		1 point
	@kfox: thanks for catching that, it's fixed now.

	joeskip69:	Jan 17th, 2011 at 01:39 GMT		2 points
	this was great! I was just picturing the map of the world in my head and treating it like a maze, thinking how i could get through the most countries without reaching a dead end. the border distance almost becomes unnecessary at that point.

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 17th, 2011 at 02:31 GMT		1 point
	@joeskip69: well said, that's exactly the strategy I hoped people would use. You're right about the utility of the border distances. They're mostly unnecessary. There are some junctures where it can be useful though. For example, you're in Peru and you see the border to the next country is only 171 km. That's a tiny border by South American standards, that's got to be Chile (a long, but very narrow country). Or you're in Israel and you see the border to the next country is only 79 km, then you know immediately that your probably not going to Jordan (which likely has a much longer border), but rather to Syria or Lebanon. Then, if your picture of the world map is good enough, you realize that it must be Lebanon, because while you can certainly go from Israel to Lebanon and then Syria, or to Syria and then Lebanon, doing the latter will leave you trapped in Lebanon, doing the former will allow you to go to Turkey, Iraq, or Jordan. That's one of the reasons I left the time limit at 15 minutes to give people some time to puzzle out the next move rather than just cycle through the borders in an exhaustive manner. Glad you enjoyed the quiz.

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 17th, 2011 at 02:40 GMT		1 point
	@joeskip69: if you prefer to do this kind of quiz completely blind (that is, without the border information) check out some of biner's quizzes: "one in each European (African or American) country." His European ones were the inspiration for my two quizzes: this one and http://www.sporcle.com/games/tahitiwahini/around_world_2_by_border_length

	tahitiwahini:	Jan 25th, 2011 at 14:40 GMT		1 point
	If you enjoy border-related quizzes you may be interested in a quiz series that covers the countries that border medium-sized countries, large- and small-sized countries have been done already in other quizzes. Here are the quizzes in this series so far: http://www.sporcle.com/games/tahitiwahini/bordering_medium_countries_1 http://www.sporcle.com/games/tahitiwahini/bordering_medium_countries_2 http://www.sporcle.com/games/tahitiwahini/bordering_medium_countries_3 http://www.sporcle.com/games/tahitiwahini/bordering_medium_countries_4 http://www.sporcle.com/games/tahitiwahini/bordering_medium_countries_5

	tahitiwahini:	Feb 4th, 2011 at 03:35 GMT		1 point
	**** Announcing MULTI-WORD ABBREVIATIONS **** For multi-word country names I am accepting abbreviations consisting of the first letter of each word in the English name of the country. There are only four exceptions to this rule: Czech Republic, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, and Sri Lanka. For these countries the first word of the name will be accepted; namely, Czech, Saudi, Sierra, and Sri. The Multi-Word Abbreviations accepted are: Antigua and Barbuda (AB), Burkina Faso (BF), Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH), Central African Republic (CAR), Costa Rica (CR), Cape Verde (CV), Czech Republic (Czech), Domincan Republic (DR), Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea (EG), El Salvador (ES), Timor-Leste (ET for East Timor), Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Guinea-Bissau (GB), Cote d'Ivoire (IC for Ivory Coast), Marshall Islands (MI), North Korea (NK), New Zealand (NZ), Papua New Guinea (PNG), Republic of the Congo (RC), Saudi Arabia (Saudi), South Africa (SA), Solomon Islands (SI), South Korea (SK), St Kitts and Nevis (SKN), Sierra Leone (Sierra), St Lucia (SL), San Marino (SM), Sri Lanka (Sri), Sao Tome and Principe (STP), St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), Trinidad and Tobago (TT), United Arab Emirates (UAE), United Kingdom (UK), United States of America (USA), and Vatican City (VC).

	tahitiwahini:	Feb 13th, 2011 at 23:05 GMT		1 point
	REVISED Multi-Word Abbreviations: the rules for the multi-word abbreviations are very simple: use the first letter of each word in the common Sporcle name of the country to compose the acronym. Omit insignificant words: "and", "of", and "the". There are ten exceptions to this rule: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, El Salvaldor, Marshall Islands, Saudi Arabia, Solomon Islands, Sierra Leone, and Sri Lanka. For these exceptions the abbreviation is merely the first word of the multi-word country name: Bosnia, Costa, Czech, Dominican, El, Marshall, Saudi, Solomon, Sierra, and Sri. These exceptions were necessary in order to eliminate conflicts with other abbreviations. I was unable to come up with an acceptable abbreviation for South Africa and St Lucia. All of my quizzes (http://www.sporcle.com/user/tahitiwahini/contributed) use both the commonly accepted Sporcle country name alternatives and the multi-word abbreviations. To see the Multi-Word Abbreviations please visit: http://www.sporcle.com/games/tahitiwahini/common_country_name_alternatives The complete list of all the Multi-Word Abbreviations: AB (Antigua and Barbuda), BF (Burkina Faso), Bosnia (Bosnia and Herzegovina), CAR (Central African Republic), CI (Cote d'Ivoire), Costa (Costa Rica), CV (Cape Verde), Czech (Czech Republic), Dominican (Dominican Republic), DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo), EG (Equatorial Guinea), El (El Salvador), FSM (Federated States of Micronesia), GB (Guinea-Bissau), Marshall (Marshall Islands), NK (North Korea), NZ (New Zealand), PNG (Papua New Guinea), RC (Republic of the Congo), Saudi (Saudi Arabia), Solomon (Solomon Islands), Sierra (Sierra Leone), SK (South Korea), SKN (St Kitts and Nevis), SM (San Marino), Sri (Sri Lanka), STP (Sao Tome and Principe), SVG (St Vincent and the Grenadines), TL (Timor-Leste), TT (Trinidad and Tobago), UAE (United Arab Emirates), UK (United Kingdom), US (United States), and VC (Vatican City).

	hazzapee:	Oct 30th, 2011 at 18:06 GMT		1 point
	out of interest, in which country does this end at?

	nthe:	May 31st, 2012 at 10:22 GMT		1 point
	@hazzapee: Estonia.