Ericzz/image_clue huggingface dataset:
In this Indonesian license plate variant, the centre of the plate is white and the edges are black. Indonesia has various forms of black license plates (as does Malaysia).
If you pan up in Senegal, you will sometimes see giant rifts in the sky.
These large pipes that pass over roads tend to be clustered around central Russia. They can also be found in Ukraine
The second most common roof type in the Philippines is this hand woven roof that uses something resembling reeds.
2nd class Finnish roads as they appear on the map.
The Street View car’s aerial is visible in Slovakia. There will sometimes be tape on the antenna in Slovakia. Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Czechia also sometimes have tape on the antenna. Slovakia also recently had some coverage taken with the blue car.
This image shows the US Virgin Islands flag alongside the US flag. These flags will often be seen in tandem around parts of the islands. The US Virgin Islands use English.
This sign indicates that you are on the Thai road numbered 1098. These numbers appear on the map. Thai roads are grouped by their first digit, so in this example, you would have to search the map for Thai roads beginning with ‘1’ which are found in the north-west of the country.
The state of Yucatan, located on the far east of Mexico on the Yucatan Peninsula mainly has license plates with a top, horizontal green section. Another potentially useful tidbit is that Mexico has narrow plates whilst most of South America has wider plates. Other identifiable Mexican plates are at the link at the bottom of this Mexico section.
Uruguayan bollards are painted white on the front and have a rectangular reflector near the top.
In Latvia, the blue kilometre markers are parallel with the road (they face the road). This contrasts Estonia where they are at right-angles to the road and Lithuania where they are in an arrow shape.
Many Ukrainian utility poles have their base section painted white.
This map of Finland illustrates that 1st class roads (those with red signs, shown with red lines) connect the major Finnish cities. The map also shows that 2nd class roads (those with yellow signs, shown with yellow lines) connect regional centres in Finland. (Source: Migro, Wikipedia)
The Spanish landscape tend to be undulating with the vegetation looking very dry. Rural Spain can look similar to the Mediterranean parts of Eastern Europe however Spain can generally be distinguished thanks to its better maintained roads.
The reflectors on the front of Austrian bollards are either blackish or dark red in colour. Seeing this black reflector and the black hat on the bollard is one of the easiest ways to tell that you are in Austria. No other countries have both of these features on their bollards. Slovenian and Montenegrin bollards look similar however they have a bright red rectangle.
The front of the Street View car is normally this ghostly, black colour in Argentina and Uruguay. Occasionally, in updated coverage it will appear white but this is rare. Across the Americas, this black car is rare although you will sometimes see it in Peru.
Between Eswatini and Lesotho, South Africa has a plateau. There will often be hilly lumps around you or on the horizon. The landscape tends to be greener here.
The Faroe Islands’ landscape is void of vegetation other than grass. There are steep hills, colourful (and white) houses and lots of rocks.
Global leaderboard distribution of ratings as of March 15 2022. (Image source: reddit user MATTISINTHESKY).
The major petrol/gas station in Brazil has this logo.
The entire country of Bhutan is mountainous and has a distinctive look.
If you pan down in Tunisia you will notice that the Street View car has a small antenna.
Instead of KABUPATEN, certain signs in some parts of Indonesia will display ‘KOTA’. This means ‘city’. The word following KOTA indicates the name of the city. In the above example, we are in the city of Bandung.
A single, continuous, yellow, centre road line on a road otherwise void of lines suggests that you are in Canada. Single yellow, continuous road lines are more prevalent in Canada than the USA where double, continuous, yellow roads lines are more common. Canada will sometimes have double, yellow road lines and the USA sometimes has single, yellow road lines.
New Zealand is typically both greener and hillier than Australia.
Argentinian cities tend to have trees between the footpath and the road, similar to Uruguay.
Polish pedestrian signs are the only ones in Europe to have just one horizontal line behind the person.
Greek signs feature letters from the Greek alphabet written on top of the equivalent Latin letters. These blue and white directional signs are common throughout Greece.
Croatian street signs are blue in colour with white lettering. ULICA means street in Croatian (and some other languages).
Many parts of the far north-eastern US and some parts of south-eastern Canada, had their coverage taken during the autumn months. This means you will see colourful leaves.
Townhouses are the most common form of abode in the Netherlands. Some townhouses have flat roofs whilst others have extremely steep roofs.
Townhouses are the most common form of abode in the Netherlands. Many townhouses have flat roofs.
In Denmark, warning signs are a triangle with a thick red outline and white colouring. This is the same as most of Europe and Norway but contrasts Sweden, Finland and Iceland which have yellow colouring. Give-way and speed limit signs are also white and red in Denmark.
The Romanian landscape is often dry. The roads are typically poorly maintained. There is a mixture of flat land and hilly land in Romania. Much of the country has a blue sky in the Street View coverage.
Signs in Qatar are typically written in both Arabic and English. This includes street signs, stop signs and directional signs.
A map indicating the phone area codes in Brazil. Often advertisements and shop signs feature a phone number and this prefix can be matched with the above map to determine locations in Brazil. Phone numbers that begin with ‘99’ in Brazil are mobile numbers. A list of the phone codes for Brazil can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dialling_codes_in_Brazil (Source: Magno Brasil, Wikipedia)
Ecuadorian utility poles come in many styles. One of the more common pole types is a cylindrical-like pole that is narrower near the top.
This type of road that is divided like a grid appears sometimes in residential Thailand, although it is more common in the Philippines. After the Philippines, it probably appears second most in Thailand.
If you zoom in on the map of New Zealand, you will notice house numbers. These can be useful if you are placed near a house and are after a perfect score.
Sometimes you will see Sri Lankan utility poles with large holes in them, like Hungarian, Polish and Romanian utility poles.
How Japanese prefectural roads appear on signs: a number within a hexagon.
Most of the time, you can identify Ukraine via its license plates. If you look carefully, Ukraine has yellow in the bottom left corner of the plate. There is also blue above this- in the top left corner of the plate.
In populated Botswanan areas, you will often encounter dirt/sand roads. Unpaved roads can also be seen in the more remote areas of Botswana.
Croatian license plates are unique in Europe. Before 2016, Croatia had purely white license plates. In 2016 they adopted European style plates with the left, blue stripe. As Street View coverage in Croatia is not up-to-date, you will see predominantly white plates in Croatia. This is one of the best ways to distinguish the country.
‘Interstate minors’ are interstates consisting of three digits with the 2nd and 3rd digit being the same as the interstate major that it runs off. For example, the interstate minor ‘470’ runs off the interstate highway 70. As the 470 starts with an even number, it connects back to the interstate highway 70. As the above map indicates, the I-470 deviates around Topeka.
Peruvian houses can often be brick or be painted a range of colours. The Peruvian roofs tend to be flat. The houses are typically very low in height. If a Peruvian houses is built out of brick, it is often a brown-coloured brick. This brick colour is fairly rare in South America outside of Peru.
The second type of main Kiwi utility pole is wooden and cylindrical.
The second most common road marking in Lesotho features two continuous, white centre lines enclosing a white dashed line. These lines can also be seen in South Africa, Eswatini and Botswana.
The back of the most common type of Swiss bollard.
Even more basic houses will often be elevated in Cambodia.
Switzerland are known for their high number of window shutters. This house is so Swiss they have six pairs of them! Wooden houses are one of the more common types of Swiss houses.
The Caribbean island of Curaçao stands out thanks to its brightly coloured houses.
Poland has green coloured directional signs with white lettering.
Gibraltar is easily recognisable thanks to the Street View car’s antenna having a white end. It looks somewhat like a magic wand. You will seldom see this aerial outside of Gibraltar.
Directional information can often be ascertained from blue signs in Thailand.
South American Street View coverage.
If you look carefully on this occasion you will see a floating antenna. This is mainly found on the back of the Street View car. In this instance we can determine that people drive on the right in this country.
Swedish directional signs are blue coloured with white writing. These are the same colours as the Finnish directional signs. The other Nordic countries have different coloured directional signs to Sweden.
The Estonian language has a similar feel to the Finnish language (both languages have a glut of double letters). Estonian is fairly distinct from Lithuanian and Latvian and it contains Õ and Ä. These other Baltic languages lack Õ and Ä. Estonian can be distinguished from Finnish as it has the unique letter Õ, something Finnish lacks.
This map shows the 3 districts of Kigali- Gasabo in the north, Nyarugenge in the south-west and Kicukiro in the south-east. The second letter of the road name stands for the district. Roads beginning with KG stand for Kigali Gasabo. Roads beginning with KN stand for Kigali Nyarugenge. Roads beginning with KK stand for Kigali Kicukiro. At present, almost all Rwandan coverage is in Gasabo. (Image source: https://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc14/papers/665_131.pdf)
If the left-most light on the police car behind you is blue, you should mainly be inside the blue triangle above. If the left-most light on the police car beind you is red, you should mainly be in the red quadrilateral above. In summary, left light blue= northern Nigerian coverage and left light red= southern Nigerian coverage. (Image source: poorly made by me)
This is the undo icon that will undo your last travel move in GeoGuessr.
Another type of Malaysian license plate- note the different type of black markings.
This is what Swedish county roads look like on the map.
This map shows copyright year distribution across Kazakhstan. Something I have seldom mentioned in this article is that if you zoom in on any Street View scene, you will be able to faintly see a year followed by the word ‘Google’. Sometimes this can be hard to see and the background behind the copyright can influence how visible it is. Now, in Kazakhstan, if you see the year 2023, you are guaranteed to be in the eastern half of the country- as per this map. If you see 2024, you could be anywhere. (Image source: brainy).
Indonesian houses most commonly have terracotta/brown coloured tiles on their roof.
US Flags are a common fixture in the United States and are commonly sprinkled throughout towns.
If you see snow coverage in Kazakhstan, you should be in the south of the country, near Almaty.
Parts of Brazil, especially the northern regions and central states such as Goias, can have a reddish soil colour.
A map showing what utility poles are made from around the world. The brown countries have a strong majority of wooden poles. The dark gray countries have a strong majority of concrete poles. The blue countries have a strong majority of metal poles. The other countries mainly have some mixture of the above combinations. (Image source Zi8gzag). A larger version of this map can be viewed here.
Cars drive on the right in American Samoa (which is rare for an island) and there is often a double yellow line in the centre of the road. The most populated island in American Samoa is Tutuila. This island features coverage along lots of roads and the island is more inhabited. The island doublet of Ofu-Olosega and the island of Ta’u feature very minimal coverage and the islands are less developed.
Tall mountains are a common fixture in Switzerland. The houses in Switzerland are often wooden and multi-storey with terracotta-coloured slanting roofs.
Australia normally has white coloured street signs.
1st class Finnish roads range in number from 1-39. These roads connect major Finnish cities. These road numbers appear with a red background on signs.
According to this study I found (https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1700035114) if you notice more sedans than pickup trucks in an American city, there is an 88% likelihood that you are in a Democrat area. If you notice more pickup trucks than sedans, there is an 82% likelihood that you are in a Republican area. This means that by examining whether there are more sedans or pickup trucks around you in the US, you should have an idea whether you are in the blue or red area on the above map: Blue= Democrat vs red= Republican. (Image source: Kingofthedead, Wikipedia).
Costa Rica’s landscape on Street View features lush, green vegetation. The roads appear high quality and well maintained.
Japan and Switzerland both have a lower than normal camera positioning on their Street View cars. This means you will feel lower to the ground when you look around Japan and Switzerland. Rarely Taiwan and Sri Lanka also uses the low camera.
A map showing the general landscapes found across the different regions of Brazil. Below this map are examples of each region with more information. (Source: poorly made by me).
Many plates in Ghana are yellow.
Swiss bollards are often this curved-cylindrical shape. This is the front of the bollard. The back of the bollard features two white dots in the black section.
Andorran locations are mainly at the bottom of a valley with mountains rising up around you. The mountains are a blend of trees and rocks. The roads look well-maintained.
Spain is one of the hot spots for olive trees with the southern 2/3rds of the country being particularly full of them.
The Bangala written language that is widespread across Bangladesh reminds me of musical notes written beneath a horizontal line that runs on top. It is distinct from Hindi as it often has triangles that point to the left.
The Northern Territory uses these metal utility poles with holes in them.
Estonian road lines are white and occasionally you will see the white dashes along the sides of the road.
Region guessing in South Korea is notoriously hard. However, here is one useful tip. If you see reddish soil- like this image, then you should be in the west of the country.
Like the other Baltic countries and much of Eastern Europe, the Street View car’s aerial should be visible if you pan down in Estonia.
If you pan down in Lithuania, you will often see a unique red and/or green glow near the side view mirror on the left of the Street View car. Estonia and Latvia lack this. In Estonia and Latvia you will occasionally see a black/white/gray on the left side view mirror.
If you notice a barrel, like the one pictured, near a house, it is a bin from Newfoundland.
These distinctive yellow bollards are regularly visible in Iceland.
Poles on the Malaysian part of Borneo are generally slightly thinner than poles on mainland Malaysia.
Houses in Singapore tend to be double storey and very affluent.
This is the type of bollard found on Sicily. Note that the rectangle can be orange or red in colour.
Argentina and Uruguay tend to have flat roofs, visible brick making up lots of houses and if not visible brick then painted brick. The bricks are often quite large in these countries.
Croatia is a country with a diverse landscape. Large parts of the country have a very Mediterranean feel and other parts of the country are mountainous. Overall, the country is very undulating. The Croatian flora tends to be lower and bushier than many of the aforementioned countries. Parts of Croatia have generation 2 camera images.
If you are situated on an unpaved road on Christmas Island, you are likely somewhere in the large Christmas Island National Park. This area of Christmas Island is dominated by thick foliage flanking the road.
About 1/4 of license plates you see in the state of New South Wales in Australia are yellow.
Turkish Street View coverage centres around its major cities and towns. It also covers the main roads connecting these areas. Few rural, minor roads are covered in Turkey.
The rear of the Slovakian bollards also look the same as the rear of Czechia bollards.
In contrast to Western Australian and South Australian speed limit sign poles being rectangular prisms and having holes running down them, speed limit signs elsewhere in Australia are mounted on cylindrical poles without holes.
This map shows the phone number prefixes across Japan. Note that the phone number prefixes increase as you travel south. 011 is on the northern island of Hokkaido and 099 is in the south of Japan. In Tokyo, the phone number prefix is 03 and in Osaka, the prefix is 06. Be aware that this chart is for landline numbers. Mobile numbers begin with 08 or 09 in Japan and toll free numbers start with 0120. (Map source: Wikipedia, Pekachu)
Like the other Baltic countries, Estonian houses often have eternit roofs (they resemble corrugated iron) that are grey/silver in colour. Identifying this house style is the easiest way for me to work out that I’m in a Baltic country.
The word ‘ALTO’ appears on stop signs in Costa Rica. Mexico and Guatemala also use the word ‘ALTO’ on their stop signs.
Some Lithuanian roads have the rare side dashed road markings although these are a bit less common than the standard European road markings in Lithuania.
This is what the back of Greek bollards look like.
There is sand along the sides of the road in some parts of Greece.
These trees (that remind me of African trees) are found in the northern part of Peru.
Palestine has Arabic as its dominant language. I recognise this language as it looks similar to calligraphy and many letters have horizontal lines underneath them. This language contrasts Hebrew which is predominant in Israel.
German cities typically have bland coloured apartments that are three to five storeys high.
Peruvian bollards look like cigarettes. They sometimes have the black stripes pictured here but on other occasions they lack these black stripes.
The Brazilian state of Acre (in the far west) stands out thanks to its houses typically being wooden and on short stilts.
North Dakota has the top of the plates as light blue. I remember this as the ‘north’ of the plate is blue therefore North Dakota.
Like in Ukraine, Russia has a large number of old-fashioned Lada cars.
This wooden a-frame pole with a horizontal bar can often be found in Austria. It is not the most common pole (about 10% of poles are this) however it is unique to Austria.
As you travel further north in Australia, the soil colour gradually changes. By the time you reach the latitude of Alice Springs, the soil is close to orange in colour. The flora in this part of the country largely consists of low lying shrubs.
Bangladesh has a high population density and this is reflected with the streets often teeming with people. There are often buildings and shops lining the sides of the road with signs galore.
Guam uses green street name signs which contrasts the Northern Mariana Islands’ blue street name signs.
Louisiana has a wide variety of plates. This type, featuring black shading, is fairly common.
Peruvian houses can often be brick or be painted a range of colours. The Peruvian roofs tend to be flat. The houses are typically very low in height.
Sri Lanka’s Street View car has blue, white and red stripes, resembling the French flag.
Bolivian houses tend to look quite similar to Peruvian houses. They are mainly made of red brick and have flat roofs. The bricks tend to be quite large. This contrasts the browner, smaller bricks used in Peru.
Macau can easily be distinguished from Hong Kong thanks to Macau’s black license plates.
A map showing the various Canadian Provincial Highway shields. (Source: Pyrobove, reddit)
The Northern Territory in Australia uses these metal utility poles with holes in them.
The cars in Qatar are generally fairly expensive. Four wheel drives are commonplace.
Chilean utility poles have an indent that runs up the pole.
These trees (that remind me of African acacia) are found in the northern part of Peru.
Canadian Street View coverage is clustered around the southern parts of the country. There is very little coverage in the northern territories or even the northern sections of the southern provinces.
Hawaii looks quite different from the contiguous USA. The dual presence of Hawaiian and English with hilly, sometimes volcanic terrain and tropical flora makes it a unique location. Hawaii also contains the typical American mainland signs.
Official signs in Macau feature both Traditional Chinese and Portuguese. Some shop signs also feature English.
There are two types of French bollard, both are the same distinct shape and different from typical European bollard shapes. This is the first type with a gray reflector strip running around it.
Apartments are often this cream colour in Jordan. This style of building tends to be 3-4 stories high, a rectangular prism in shape with a flat roof and many windows.
Malaysian bollards have two red rectangles on them. Some bollards have two gray rectangles on one side.
Utility poles in Eswatini are generally wooden and fairly rudimentary. They are often fairly dark in colour compared to wooden poles of other countries.
Northern African Street View coverage.
The UAE landscape consists of a sandy desert and fair-coloured buildings.
Most Pakistani coverage is in and around religious monuments/temples. Pakistan is a majority Muslim country.
The central part of Argentina has many grass fields with a moderate covering of flora.
The Isle of Man has very narrow, windy roads and often bushes alongside the roads.
ALTO is written on stop signs in both Mexico and Guatemala. This contrasts South America in which the word ‘PARE’ is written on stop signs.
Portugal has two main types of utility poles. The first type is more unique looking and has small holes running vertically up it. Sometimes Portuguese utility poles of this style will have less holes.
In the USA, they write the words ‘SPEED LIMIT’ on their signs indicating the maximum speed in the area. This contrasts Canada which writes ‘MAXIMUM’ on their equivalent signs.
Swedish street signs end in the suffixes ‘…gatan’ and ‘…vägen’.
Using ratios, I would place my fingers over the map and measure the approximately distance between Bridgewater and Crafers and extrapolate that again, thus working out my approximate location. When ratios are more complicated, eg once location is 17km away and another is 104km away, I would round the numbers off to 20km and 100km. I would then determine that there are 4x20km sections between the towns (1/4 of the distance) and that is the approximate distance between me and the closest location.
The southern part of Thailand that stretches down along the peninsula is even more tropical than the remainder of Thailand. Oil palms are particularly common here. If I see oil palms and I’m in Thailand, I will guess somewhere on the peninsula.
Thai streetlights often have black stripes towards their base. Thai streetlights also stretch well onto the road.
A map showing elevations across Europe. Note the high mountains centred around Switzerland. (Source: worldatlas.com)