Ericzz/image_clue huggingface dataset:
The easiest way to identify Guam is to pan down and look at the extremely blurred Street View car that has an antenna stemming from the front-right corner. The Northern Mariana Islands have virtually an identical car (with one subtle difference explained in the below image). Puerto Rico also have an antenna stemming from the front-right corner of the car however their car has a more subtle blurring.
A map showing the most common suffixes to denote roads across the USA. Note the yellow region representing the abundant usage of the word ‘Street’. (Source: TIGER/Line)
This umbrella thorn acacia is found across large swathes of Africa and parts of the Middle-East.
Nigerians love to place their address on their signs. In the above example, we are in the city of Ibadan, in the Ode-Aje area and in the Ayekale District.
This is the type of bollard found in Sicily. Note the rectangle’s width and the fact that it can be orange or red in colour.
About 20% of the time when you pan down in South Korea, you will see the white Street View car.
In Israel, you should sometimes be able to see the Street View car’s long aerial.
The islands of Shikoku and Kyushu (their location is displayed in the below map) often have this long, dry looking grass that has fluffy tops.
Greenland tends to have a range of colourfully painted houses.
The second variant of the Mongolian Street View car is the visible bars along with the red side view mirrors.
Alaska is a mountainous state with tall trees and spectacular scenery. Additionally, Alaska typically has generation 3 coverage. This contrasts the northern Canadian territories which were covered with generation 2. This means if you see generation 3 coverage in northern North America, you should be in Alaska.
Percentiles of GeoGuessr ratings as of March 15 2022. (Image source: reddit user MATTISINTHESKY)
The Japanese and Swiss Street View car appears wider than the normal Street View car. Rarely the Taiwanese car will also appear wide.
Kazakhstan can be easy to identify thanks to this white truck that captured the entire country’s Street View imagery.
Spain has a number of different types of utility poles. The type pictured isn’t the most common pole but it does stand out thanks to its numerous indents. France can have similar looking indented poles however Spanish poles are whiter in colour. Portugal can have similar poles with less indents and featuring holes.
The most popular cars in Asia
Rural Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian houses often have eternit roofs (that look like corrugated iron) that are different shades of gray/silver. The roofs tend to face the road. These houses are one of the easiest ways to identify the Baltic countries.
If you see bars beneath you in Nigeria, you should be in the southern half of the country. (Note: If you don’t see bars, it doesn’t mean you aren’t in the south of the country).
Cambodia has a tropical landscape. Cars drive in the right which contrasts most of South-East Asia which drives on the left. Cars also drive on the right in the Philippines, Laos (which has minimal coverage) and Vietnam (which has minimal coverage).
The above plate is from New Brunswick and has red lettering that can just be distinguished. Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador also have similar red lettering on their plates.
Vehicles in Indonesia drive on the left (although much of the region does, including Malaysia). This left driving contrasts Indonesia from the Philippines and South America which both can look vaguely similar to Indonesia. Indonesia can be distinguished from Malaysia as Indonesia tends to look poorer in general.
Portugal and Brazil are the only Portuguese speaking locations in GeoGuessr (although Macau also uses the language). There are a few easy ways to tell Portuguese from Spanish. Portuguese has the ‘Ç’ symbol whilst Spanish doesn’t. This is a regularly occurring symbol in Portuguese so many signs will house it. Another tell is that many words in Portuguese end in ‘ção’. Finally, Portuguese has the symbol ã which is an ‘a’ with a squiggle on its top (this is different from an accent).
Roadside curbs in Nigeria sometimes have this pattern of alternating white and dark blue/black.
Taiwanese utility poles are everywhere. They are cylindrical in shape and typically have their lower section covered in diagonal black and yellow stripes which stretch all the way to the ground. South Korea also has diagonal black and yellow stripes on their utility poles however in South Korea the black and white stripes don’t reach the ground.
Many Turkish residents live in apartments that are a number of stories high with a terracotta, tiled roof.
Seeing this letter ‘ş’ in a useful way to confirm that you are in Turkey.
If you are in a Nordic country and see a dirt or gravel road, you are likely in Finland.
For GeoGuessr purposes, if you see a car driving on the left side of the road in mainland Africa, you are south of the red line on the map. If you see a car driving on the right side of the road, then you are north of the red line. Madagascar and Reunion drive on the right.
Nigerian towns and outer suburbs often have light coloured, sandy, dirt roads.
A map showing Street View coverage in Oceania.
The other 40% of the time in Cambodia, you should see a stubby antenna. This stubby antenna has what looks like string going around it several times. The only other areas with a stubby antenna are Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil (sometimes), Mexico (sometimes)- these Latin American locations only have the ‘string’ going around the antenna once. The stubby antenna is also seen in Hawaii and on occasions, Indonesia.
These blue signs provide road names in South Korea. They can be useful for helping you determine that you are indeed in South Korea and for helping pinpoint.
In rural areas, these Eiffel Tower like structures carry the power lines.
Mannheim street signs typically appear on buildings, not on poles. They feature the blue background and white lettering.
The Swedish language has ‘eyes’ (two small dots) over the a and o sometimes: ä and ö. The letter ‘a’ also sometimes has a circle above it: å. Finnish has similar letters but stands out for its glut of double letters- something Swedish largely lacks.
Senegal’s road lines often feature white dashes on the edges and white dashes in the centre. These dashes commonly appear faded and sometimes it can be difficult to notice them. Sometimes dirt has blown over the road and it can be challenging to see the lines.
If you are in the Senegalese car that has one rear bar with a black covering, you are on one of the roads with an aqua arrow on the above map. If you are in the car with two black coverings on the rear bar, then you are on a road with a black arrow…..This map also shows the road conditions of the Senegalese roads. The blue lines are roads in a good condition, mainly with centre lines. The red lines are roads in a poor condition, with faded or missing lines (such as the road in the north-east of the country). The occasional brown line is a dirt/sand road. Image source (which also opens up a bigger version of the map): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JdyJNoOkksLAdGnJ_scA17K1pHV3THHERY-Y05B6rKI/htmlview#gid=873742111
Whilst most roads in Cambodia are dirt, marked bitumen roads will typically have a yellow centre line and white side lines, like Thailand.
A map indicating the maximum speed limit by region. The key shows both km/h within the red circle and miles/h written on the black and white sign. (Source: Amateria1121, Wikipedia) Note that NZ has a maximum speed limit for most of the country of 100km/h (only two of its roads have a limit of 110km/h). A larger map can be viewed here.
Albania has the same looking bollards at Italy featuring a red rectangle in the black section of the bollard that extends to the top. Bollards are fairly rare to see in Albania compared to Italy. Albanian bollards have a white rectangle on their rear.
Peru’s most common bollards look like cigarettes. They sometimes have the black stripes pictured here but on other occasions they lack these black stripes.
In this example, Finland has its standard white side lines and yellow centre line but it also concurrently has a white dashed centre line.
Peruvian sign poles also stand out as they are often situated in solid concrete blocks that are above ground level.
Standard Estonian bollards are cylindrical. This contrasts the narrow plank bollards of Lithuania and Latvia. The front of Estonian bollards have the white rectangle encased in the black section, similar to the Latvian bollards. Estonian bollards will on rare occasions have a yellow rectangle rather than the white rectangle.
These Eiffel Tower-like structures appear throughout Bulgaria.
A map showing the location of American Samoa (denoted by the red marker). American Samoa is situated just east of the International Date Line and Fiji. One of the easiest ways to find it is to locate the northern point of Australia and to scan directly east.
The eastern part of Bolivia around Santa Cruz (which has limited coverage) is green and lush. So too is the area north of La Paz and Cochabamba (these are the green areas on the GeoGuessr map). This green landscape is more of an aberration in Bolivia with most of the country dry with less flora. If I see a lush green Bolivia round, I will typically guess somewhere around Santa Cruz.
The locations of Sfax and Gabes, where the map is visible in the car following the street view car.
South Korea and Vietnam are the only Asian countries to use warning signs featuring a triangle with a red border and yellow fill.
The license plates of taxis appears on the sides of the vehicle in Peru (as they do in Colombia and Bolivia).
This is a Polish guardrail (the silver guardrail). It is a B-profile guardrail which consists of 90-degree angles and a narrow central section. In Europe, this type of guardrail is only found in Poland, Croatia, Serbia and Denmark. It is also found in some parts of Turkey, North Macedonia, Ireland and Germany.
This map shows the Japanese islands of Shikoku and Kyushu- they are the southern green and orange islands. These areas have the dry, fluffy grass as shown in the image above this map. (map source: kimonoseikatsu).
Polish is a fairly recognisable language. The frequent letter “z’s” are a good sign you are in Poland as is the letter ł (Ł). The letters j, w and y also occur abundantly. Other letters in Polish include: ó, ż, ś, ȩ and ń.
Senegalese utility poles typically have three of these pine cone shaped objects either pointing upwards or downwards.
Across South America, the word ‘PARE’ is written on stop signs. This can help distinguish the continent from other areas such as Mexico and Guatemala where the word ‘ALTO’ is written on stop signs.
Citroen cars are another common French car brand. The above logo is the Citroen logo.
Across the entire German coverage, the generation 2 camera is used.
High walls and fences around houses are a common sight in South Africa.
Green signs with white lettering provide highway information in South Korea. The expressway shields used by South Korea look similar to US Interstate shields. Expressway numbers are shown on the map in South Korea however you need to zoom in significantly to see them.
Some Ecuadorian towns have narrow roads comprising individual tiles that tessellate.
The northern part of Australia tends to have almost reddish dirt in combination with quite green and lush flora.
Bulgaria predominantly uses Cyrillic. There are no distinguishing Cyrillic letters unique to Bulgarian Cyrillic.
The Philippines has various versions of license plates with green on white.
Graz in Austria has green coloured street name signs for everywhere except the very centre of the city.
The above flags are similar enough that you may be able to trick opponents in Battle Royale. For example, if you are located in Romania, you can guess Chad. The Chad flag will then be displayed in the list of incorrect guesses. The other players will likely think that Romania has been ruled out (due to the similar looking flags) and hence avoid guessing Romania. (Source: Gilabend, Reddit).
Much of the green landscape in Estonia tends to have a subtle greenish tint that distinguishes it from Lithuania and Latvia. This green tint takes lots of practice to be able to identify.
Croatia have these bollards featuring a front with a black strip encasing a red, rectangle. Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Hungary have the same looking bollards.
Plates from Israel shouldn’t be confused with UK or Netherlands plates despite their similarity. Israeli plates are narrow, yellow and have a vertical blue stripe on the left.
Although South Africa widely uses wooden poles, the urban areas of South Africa mainly contain concrete poles, pained black on the base.
New Zealand houses are often white in colour and bungalow-style. White coloured houses are much more common in New Zealand than Australia and this can be another clue to distinguish between the two countries.
The most common rear license plates in Jersey feature either an all yellow, elongated plate or a yellow, elongated plate with a white stripe on the left. You will seldom see the blue stripe of Europe on Jersey plates. This is a good way to distinguish Jersey from the UK.
Indonesian Street View coverage is fairly limited with little of the eastern part of the country covered. Sulawesi mainly has coverage only in the far north-east and southern areas. Central Borneo has no coverage, nor does Aceh at the northern tip of Sumatra. Java is densely covered.
In Malaysian Borneo, some (a minority of) utility poles will have a white rectangle on them. Just like the black rectangle tells you that you are situated on mainland Malaysia, the white rectangle tells you that you are located on Malaysian Borneo.
This is a Russian bollard. Russian bollards often have a unique feature- a narrow support pole on one side of them. This makes them unique from Ukrainian bollards.
This is the second most common type of Belgian utility pole. It contains oval shaped hole section. This pole is also occasionally found in France.
These short and white bollards appear near water sources in Uruguay.
If you pan down in Cambodia, you should see the white Street View car approximately 60% of the time.
The generation 4 camera often produces a ghostly, blue car if you pan down.
The Street View car can be black or white in Peru. Within South America, Uruguay and Argentina also have the black car. If you see no colour car beneath you in Peru, you should eventually see a car colour if you move.
This image shows three signs that are visible in the Northern Mariana Islands. Depicted are: the leftmost stop sign (they have English as their language), the highway shield sign (we are on route 308) and the US Speed Limit sign (the US own this territory). Also note the US style metal poles with small holes holding up these signs.
Jordan’s Street View coverage is centred around Amman, It stretches up to Jerash and down the western side of the country to Aqaba.
A Texas Farm Road as it appears on the map (the same symbol as US County Highways)
The Borneo part of Malaysia appears very remote, with few cars, few people and lots of vegetation.
Houses of this distinct reddish-brown colour are a common sight in the Nordic countries.
Peruvian houses often have electricity counters on them consisting of a rectangular box with two or three horizontal black lines. They aren’t found elsewhere in the world to my knowledge. This is one of the best ways to identify Peru.
Although bollards are relatively rare in the UK compared to some other European countries, they are rather unique looking and consist of black and white sections with a large red rectangle on top.
Scotland tends to have a higher percentage of grey coloured houses and buildings than England.
Dirt roads are common in Uganda. Ugandan roads seem to be narrower on average than Kenyan roads. The Ugandan landscape often features green, lush and tropical looking flora.
Street View coverage in Panama is mainly centred around the country’s largest urban areas. All of Panama City is covered; this means if you land in Panama in an urban area, you are most likely in Panama City. The roads between the largest cities in Panama are also covered.
Sweden mainly has fairly generic European bollards. Bollards are a regular sight in Sweden.
Nevada has some blue plates.
A white or light coloured soil is typically found alongside the road in the southern half of South Australia.
Mopeds are particularly common in Gibraltar. Vehicles drive on the right in Gibraltar which contrasts the UK where vehicles drive on the left.
Turkey uses either blue or green coloured directional signs.
Brazilian utility poles can comes in a range of styles. The most common type is wider at the base and narrower at the top. They tend to also have indents in them. They look similar to Chilean poles however Chilean utility poles have one long indent whilst Brazil typically has 3 indented sections.
The Street View car’s aerial is visible in Croatia if you pan down like much of Eastern Europe.
There is also a high proportion of unpaved roads in Rwanda.
A sign indicating a US Texas Farm Road
The back of Czech bollards have a white rectangle in the black section.
The most common type of utility pole in the Philippines is in this crucifix style pole, made from wood.
Like much of the region, including Indonesia, Malaysia uses the yellow, diamond warning signs. The Acronym ‘AWAS’ commonly appears in Malaysia and signifies their road safety system.
The US Virgin Islands has several common license plates. In general, license plates here contain some form of blue on them. Some plates also feature an orange centre marking as well as the blue. Two of the most common plates are pictured above. The US Virgin Islands generally use both front and rear plates.
New Zealand utility poles come in several forms however regardless of form, they mainly have a lone piece of metal (normally silver or white coloured) wrapped around most of the pole.
This lighter green Toyota follows the Street View car in Tunis and indeed everywhere in the northern part of Tunisia- north of Hammamet.
These thin, white trees are less likely to be seen in Lithuania. As you travel north to Latvia and Estonia, these trees are more common and tend to grow in larger clusters. The other trees in picture are more common in Lithuania.
Street signs in Prague are red and feature the word ‘PRAHA’ which is the Czech name for the city. The word before ‘Praha’ refers to the district in Prague you are located in. in this example, we are in Bubenec. The districts of Prague appear on the map.
Australian ‘GIVE WAY’ signs are written in black writing. In contrast, New Zealand ‘GIVE WAY’ signs are written in red writing. Additionally, New Zealand has a triangle printed on the road approaching ‘GIVE WAY’ signs whilst Australian roads are bare.
The rural South African landscape rarely features much vegetation other than grass (which often appears dry, yellow or red).
A map showing what style of stop sign is used around the world. A larger version of this map can be viewed here. Thanks to whoever made this map.
Occasionally the left, side view mirror of the Latvian Street View car will be slightly visible. It will be gray/white/black. Estonia has a similar coloured left, side view mirror that is occasionally visible. Lithuania has a more commonly visible left side view mirror that is red and green.
Like Israel, Palestine has the same black and white striped base on many of its street lights.
Mongolian Street View coverage covers paved roads and dirt paths. The landscape across most of the country is rather barren and there is little vegetation.
The other most common thing to see if you pan down in Finland is this blurred car with jagged edges. This car is also very common in the Baltic countries and Croatia.
License plates in Bermuda are fairly long and narrow. If you look very carefully, there should be a slight blue section on the top-central and bottom-central part of the plate.
On Kinmen, you will not only see the diagonal black and yellow stripes on utility poles but also diagonal red and white stripes. These candy cane style poles are the easiest way to identify the Kinmen Islands.
Stuttgart has dark signs with white lettering.
If you have a poor image quality location in the northern hemisphere that has fairly flat terrain, there is a good chance you are in either North Dakota or South Dakota.
Most of Ukraine has a red car with a long antenna.
The southern parts of Russia near Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia are void of trees.
Road warning signs around the world. (Source: Fry1989, Wikipedia). A larger map can be viewed here.
Street View coverage in Vietnam was recorded on a motorbike. In Vietnam you will either see the motorbike, the blurred outline of the motorbike or a helmet.
A map showing the locations of Russian phone number prefixes. The phone number code refers to the first 3-digits found in the brackets on Russian phone numbers. Note that phone numbers beginning with ‘9’ are mobile numbers. A larger version of this map can be found here. (Many thanks to robofcourse for making this amazing map!)
A map showing the corn production distributions across the USA. The areas that are coloured dark-green are where you are most likely to be positioned if you are next to a corn field in GeoGuessr. (Source: The US Department of Agriculture).
This is the rarer version of Serbian bollards. Note that the red rectangle is also to one side. The rear of the bollard has a white rectangle. Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary and North Macedonia have the same looking bollards but instead have the red rectangle centred.
The French region of Brittany in north-western France has bilingual road signs featuring both French and Breton.
I’ve noticed a lone piece of metal (normally silver or white coloured) wrapping around most New Zealand utility poles. Tasmania has an olive coloured wrapping as opposed to the New Zealand silver coloured wrapper.
Japan’s northern most island- Hokkaido (and sometimes northern Honshu) house this unique cabbage looking vegetation.
The second type of Australian bollard features a red rectangle.
Lesotho tends to use the wooden utility poles that are fairly generic and common throughout southern Africa.
Curaçao is Dutch speaking with the signs reflecting this. There are also small smatterings of English across Curaçao.
The western part of Eswatini often features lots of taller trees packed together in close bunches.
The main things that strike me about the Austrian landscape are the rolling hills across much of the country and the abundant green grass. I haven’t seen The Sound of Music but the same scenery features there.
The south-eastern part of Brazil (the red part on the map) is the most populated part of the country. As a result, cars are commonly visible on the roads and there are houses visible, even in rural areas. The most distinctive landscape features of this area are the green, rolling hills and density of trees with plentiful, green leaves.
Uruguayan roads often have white dashes inside two yellow lines.
Ukraine often has a row of trees on each side of the road. The country is flat and typically green. Ukrainian roads are some of the worst maintained in Europe.
The chevrons in Kazakhstan are yellow with black arrows. Furthermore, the poles across the country are white with a black base- the same as Russian poles.
The rears of Austrian bollards tend to have a light coloured rectangle. Note that some Austrian bollards, like this one, have an extra section protruding upwards from the black top.
A reddish dirt is visible in large parts of Laos.
In Mexico, it is a fairly common convention for only the front of buildings to be painted with the sides having visible brick.