how to play state lines
State Lines is a free daily geography game. You see the shape of a US state with no map around it and get six guesses to name it. Every wrong guess shows how far that state is in miles, which direction to head, and how close you are as a percentage.
- Look at the outline. Islands that belong to the state are included.
- Type a state and pick it from the suggestions, or press enter to pick the highlighted one. Postal abbreviations work, so ny is New York.
- A miss shows the distance in miles between the two states, an arrow pointing toward the answer, and a closeness score. 100% is the same spot. 0% is 3,000 miles or more.
- Find it in six guesses. Easy uses the 25 most populous states. Normal and hard use all 50.
Keyboard: Type on your keyboard, arrow keys move between suggestions, Enter guesses, Backspace deletes, and Esc goes back to the menu.
tips
- A big first guess in the middle of the country tells you a lot from the arrow alone.
- Distances are measured between each state's label point, so neighbors can still be a couple hundred miles apart.
- Alaska's far-west islands are shifted so the outline stays one piece, instead of jumping across the date line.
faq
Is there a new state every day?
Yes, at midnight in your time zone, starting from a fixed list on October 5, 2026. The daily list goes through all 50 states before one comes back. Practice never deals a state that's coming up as a daily in the next month.
Which states are in it?
The 50 states. Washington, D.C. and the territories are not answers and not guesses.
Where do the shapes come from?
State outlines and label points come from Natural Earth 1:50m admin-1 states and provinces (public domain). The easy list is the 25 most populous states in the US Census Bureau 2024 population estimates (public domain).
How is it scored?
By the number of guesses it took, from one to six. The share shows how close each guess was and which way it pointed, never the state.