Blog > Monthly Geo Trivia questions

Hi everyone,

welcome to the October 2023 edition of #fridaygeotrivia, our a social media geotrivia contest. Due to some unavoidable travel the game was pushed back by a week to Friday, the 3rd of November We played at 18:00 Berlin time, 5pm London time, 1pm New York time.

See how to play below.

The October 2023 geotrivia question:

It’s often said that “money makes the world go round”, so we thought we would make it the topic of this month’s game.

What is the longest chain of countries such that each successive country in the chain shares a land border with and has a higher GDP per capita than the previous country?

As an example chain of four: Portugal 🇵🇹 - Spain 🇪🇸 - France 🇫🇷 - Andorra 🇦🇩

Notes:

  • Only one answer per toot

  • As always you must include the hashtag #fridaygeotrivia and the emoji flag of the countries

  • Our definition of “country” is any territory with it’s own ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code

  • We are using the CIA’s estimate of GDP (PPP) per capita (because they provide an estimate for every country). See the chart here.

"PT-ES-FR-AD GDP chain"

Prizes

#fridaygeotrivia is a game with two prizes:

  1. the sheer joy of geographic knowledge and pedantry.

  2. the bragging rights of getting the answer first.

The #fridaygeotrivia Mastodon thread:

The winner

The title was shared between Ryan , SK53 and Jann.

This month’s geotrivia answer:

Two chains of 12 were discovered during the live game:
  • 🇦🇫 Afghanistan - 🇹🇯 Tajikistan - 🇺🇿 Uzbekistan - 🇹🇲 Turkmenistan - 🇰🇿 Kazahkistan - 🇷🇺 Russia - 🇵🇱 Poland - 🇨🇿 Czechia - 🇩🇪 Germany - 🇦🇹 Austria - 🇨🇭 Switzerland - 🇱🇮 Liechtenstein (12)
  • Kosovo 🇽🇰 Albania 🇦🇱 North Macedonia 🇲🇰 Serbia 🇷🇸 Bulgaria 🇧🇬Romania 🇷🇴 Hungary 🇭🇺 Slovenia 🇸🇮 Italy 🇮🇹 Austria 🇦🇹 Switzerland 🇨🇭 Liechtenstein 🇱🇮 (12)
Later though Nikolas Kuschnig discovered a chain of 15 :
  • Kosovo 🇽🇰 Albania 🇦🇱 North Macedonia 🇲🇰 Serbia 🇷🇸 Bulgaria 🇧🇬 Romania 🇷🇴 Hungary 🇭🇺 Slovenia 🇸🇮 Italy 🇮🇹 France 🇫🇷 Belgium 🇧🇪 Germany 🇩🇪 Austria 🇦🇹 Switzerland 🇨🇭 Liechtenstein 🇱🇮

How to play

Anyone can join in, you just need a Mastodon account.

  • Follow us on Mastodon, our account is @opencage@en.osm.town

  • When the game starts we will post the question here on the blog and on Mastodon, and will embed the Mastodon question here. We highly recommend using a mastodon client you feel comfortable with. We’ve made the switch to the Elk client and are loving it, but use whatever works for you.

  • Reply to the question thread on Mastodon (it will be embedded above) using the hashtag #fridaygeotrivia in your answer.

  • Only one answer per response (don’t stuff multiple answers into a single reply).

  • Our definition of “country” is usually (it depends on the question) any place with an ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code. Read more background about ISO and country codes in our guide.

  • To get full points for an answer it is good form not just to name the relevant country but (if possible) to include the emoji flags of the country.

  • While you can use a map, please do NOT use the internet to just search for an answer. That is cheating and will lead to seriously bad geokarma.

Some people have complained that the format is a bit chaotic and hard to follow. Yes. The mad chaos is part of the fun. Embrace it. The goal is just to have fun and learn. We win by playing

Thanks for playing,

Ed