Ericzz/image_clue huggingface dataset:
If you are trying to find the name of the state and town you are located in within the USA, it is often a good idea to look for the town’s post office. These are commonly located on the main street (typically creatively named ‘Main St’). In this example, we are in Spencer, TN which is Tennessee. Let’s hope for GeoGuessr purposes that people don’t realise that letters are an outdated form of communication and these post offices continue to exit.
South African highway signs are green with white lettering (similar to the other countries in the southern part of Africa). The highway number is indicated by yellow lettering. These signs are very useful when trying to pinpoint in South Africa. You will often see them at remote intersections. South African highways start with the letters R, M or N followed by a number.
In Puerto Rico, you will see these small rectangular signs every 100m or so on main roads. The number (in this case 21.2) informs you of how far away San Juan is in kilometres. If you are travelling on the other side of the road, the number will also be 21.2. These numbers are very helpful in terms of telling you where in the country you are located. If you are in south-western Puerto Rico, you will see numbers up to 180km (the furthest point from the capital). If you are on the ring road that circles Puerto Rico, you may see a sign with 80km on it. This means you can be 80km clockwise or anti-clockwise from the capital. You can tell which of these location you are positioned in by travelling eg clockwise and noting whether the numbers get smaller or bigger.
If you pan down in most of Russia, you should see some semblance of a black car with a long aerial.
Houses in the south of Chile tend to be wooden, painted a range of bright colours and have slanting roofs made from corrugated iron.
This map shows the telephone area codes in the US. A larger version of this map can be viewed here. Whilst many states have multiple area codes and there is no clear pattern to their numbering, it can be useful to know some of the states that only use one number for their area code. (Source: allareacodes.com).
A map of chevron designs around the world. Chevron are signs with arrows on them that generally indicate a corner on a road. (Source: Bullfrogggy) A larger version of this map can be seen here.
Argentinian road lines often feature white dashes in the centre next to a yellow, continuous line. Uruguay also has this combination.
The US and Canada have cylindrical, wooden utility poles- as do many other countries around the world. The US and Canada’s poles sometimes stand out because they can have a singular hook on top of the pole, as pictured (this can be seen in several other countries however it is more common in the US and Canada).
Across most of Luxembourg, the country has undulating terrain. This is rarely steep and often consists of gentle slopes. It is rare to see much dead-flat land in Luxembourg (something that the Netherlands has a lot of). Much of the Luxembourg landscape consists of green grass fields.
The Jordan landscape features a desert. Parts of Jordan are flat whilst other parts are rather hilly. The roads of Jordan in general are of a lower quality than the UAE.
Villages in the Philippines aren’t where the village name appears on the map. In the above example, the name ‘Magpet’ appears in the top right corner of the screen in a remote area. The Magpet village is actually in the bottom-left corner of the image. When you find a village name in the Philippines, look for an array of roads nearby and zoom in to make sure it’s the right village eg look for Magpet Hall or Magpet school.
The Czech language is only spoken in Czechia. It has more z’s than most languages but less than Polish. Like Slovak, it has many letter p’s. It has numerous letters with symbols above the letter including: á, é, ý, č, š, ž, ě, ů and ř. To distinguish the language from Slovak, look for ř and ě. In general, the Czech language reminds me of Polish but with more marks over the letters.
The Philippines is one of only a few countries in the world to have these white chevron signs with red arrows. It also has a glut of political signs around the country (as seen in the lower right area of the above image). Drivers drive on the right in the Philippines which distinguishes it from Indonesia and Malaysia.
Japanese directional signs are blue with white lettering. A detailed explanation of the Japanese highway numbering system is in the ‘Highways Numbering Systems’ section of this article.
Many small, North Macedonian signs have a black rear.
Rice fields are common throughout South-East Asia, especially in Thailand.
A map indicating the states of the USA that don’t require front license plates. In the ‘License Plate’ section of this article, each recognisable license plate in the US is pictured. Cars lacking a front license plate are fairly rare in the world outside parts of the USA and Canada.
Many shop signs in the Philippines provide their location. In this example, we are told that we are on Lizada St in Davao City.
Svalbard has some boat coverage, mainly off the north-western coast.
The edges of Argentinian roads have three types of these small black and white signs on tiny wooden posts. The first type of these signs just displays the kilometre of the road you are on.
Portugal stands out for its license plates. The right side of the plates have a vertical yellow stripe that is clearly visible. Portuguese plates also have the standard, European blue, vertical stripe on the left of their plates.
Kenya often has the bars of the Street View car visible.
The Tunisian island of Djerba typically lacks the follow car.
Bengali is faded white in the above map (as opposed to the brighter white colour). This script is used in eastern India in the state of West Bengal (next to Bangladesh). Note the horizontal line on the letters (similar to Devanagari) but also the abundance of large, black dots- Devanagari largely lacks this.
If you wish to determine the exact direction that the road is facing, which is often a useful process in GeoGuessr, then pan so you are looking straight down. Make sure you are facing north and the road beneath you will be running in its true direction.
Malaysian cars drive on the left, like much of the region, including Indonesia. In general, Malaysia looks richer than Indonesia. The Malay roads are better maintained, the cars are more affluent as are the houses.
Bermuda has real tropical island vibes with lots of palm trees and a holiday resort feel. These small walls, as seen on the left of the image, are also common.
Political graffiti is common throughout Peru, often appearing on the sides of houses.
Most of the time Californian plates will appear white. If you look carefully, you may be able to see a slight red upper glow and red upper-right corner on Californian plates.
Across almost the entire country of South Korea, you will see mountains nearby or in the background. Much of the flatter South Korean land is dedicated to growing rice. These narrow roads often weave through rural parts of South Korea.
Montana has a number of license plates. One of the most common has a blue glow across the entire plate.
Hong Kong is densely populated, has many high-rise buildings. It has a real tropical feel with palm trees being particularly common. Box shaped cars also feature abundantly. Cars drive on the left in Hong Kong.
If you pan down in Czechia, there are a range of things you might see. One of these things is tape on the Street View car’s aerial. Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania may also have this tape.
This is the other popular shape of Slovenian roof. This terracotta colour is a popular roof colour in Slovenia as is brown. There are a high number of two-storey houses across Slovenia.
All of the Qatar coverage north of Doha was taken with this truck that has a short, bent aerial.
Public transport in the Ukraine has yellow license plates.
This map shows the phone area codes for the Canadian provinces and territories. A larger version of this map can be viewed here. (Source: allareacodes.com).
Under the right circumstances, Western Australian license plates are recognisable. They feature a narrow, horizontal blue band running across the top of the plate. Sometimes it will be challenging to see this blue strip.
Cornfields are most common in the US and Southern Europe.
A fir tree. These are typically found in colder regions.
Taiwanese roads often have yellow centre lines and white edge lines. Taiwan is a rare island country in the world where drivers drive on the right.
North-western USA largely consists of thick forests with this specific type of tall tree.
Brazilian Street View coverage is centred around the east and south of the country. Very little of the western part of the country, where the Amazon Rainforest is positioned, is covered.
A National road sign in Norway
A black 4-wheel drive follows the Street View car in Benin City and on the E1 south of Logbara.
Devanagari is orange in the above map. It is used to write Hindi. It is also the most common script used across India. Note the horizontal lines on top of the letters (like Bengali) but also certain letters resembling spiral staircases.
Examples of Danish language. I think of Danish as a mixture of the other Nordic languages with a tiny bit of Dutch and German influence. The ø symbol occurs in Danish as well as Norwegian.
If you notice the follow car with a map situated in the centre of the front window, you are situated in the Tunisian city of either Sfax or Gabes.
In the south and east parts of Romania, you will see an assortment of different types of house roofs. Some of these will be tiled, while some won’t be.
The Faroe Islands have a few different types of road lines. The most common type feature long, white, side dashes, in a similar style to Norway.
Russian poles are often white with a black base. This black base is rarely seen on poles elsewhere although Kyrgyzstan sometimes has this too.
Latvian utility poles sometimes have the diagonal support beam.
The symbol denoting United States Highways on the map
These black and yellow stripes extend to Colombian traffic lights.
If you are tossing up between the US and Canada, then imperial vs metric measurements on signs can be useful. Kilometres= Canada, miles=USA.
In the Philippines, you should generally see some sort of white outline of the edge of the Street View car.
Prince Edward Island (the island just north of Nova Scotia) often has a reddish soil that seems out-of-place in Canada.
These directional signs provide useful information for pinpointing in Jersey. ‘A’ roads are the major roads in Jersey although these roads are often small and narrow.
Stobie poles are the utility poles used in the state of South Australia. These poles essentially aren’t used outside of this state. The poles consist of steel on both sides and concrete in the centre.
Parts of Laos often have striped curbs.
Low, rocky walls are a feature of Ireland although these often occur in the UK and on other islands.
It’s often possible to narrow down where you are in Bolivia based on smudges and the type of road. I think this map was created by Reddit user __Blue_
Bangladeshi bollards look like chimneys and are painted in alternating red and white sections. Sometimes the bollards are shorter than this image and thus have less red and white sections.
These narrow and distinctive looking blue fire hydrants are a common sight throughout Croatia.
Outside of the capital Bishkek, the Kyrgyzstan landscape is largely void of trees and undulating.
If you encounter a sign with the name of multiple locations you don’t recognise, search the map for the location that is furthest away as it is likely to be larger hence easier to find on the map. In this example, we would search for Rosario.
The most common type of utility pole in Uruguay features three upward-facing bulbs that makes the pole resemble a trident.
Trans-Canada Highways as they appear on the map
Some Argentine cars have a blue horizontal stripe on the top of their plates. These plates are elongated and much longer than other Latin American plates (other than Brazil which has long plates).
Street View coverage in Costa Rica is limited to footpaths as it was captured by a person walking around and not a car.
If you pan down in Greenland, you are bound to see a unique and visible form of transportation holding the Street View camera.
The yellow area on the above map (the mid-eastern part of Botswana): The ground is fully covered with short grass. There are slightly more trees. This area is more populated than the remainder of Botswana (which is relative, as it can still seem quite lowly populated).
These directional arrows are particularly common in the Austrian Alps. They are either red with a white arrow or yellow with a red arrow.
Regular vehicles in India have white license plates that are elongated. Electric vehicles have green license plates and transport and trucks have yellow license plates.
Minor Albanian roads are often poorly-maintained. The country is green and hilly. Note the water heaters on the houses.
Romania has a glut of these concrete utility poles with holes. Hungary and Poland also have these poles. France has some similar utility poles but they are much rarer. Romania’s poles stand out as they often have a yellow mark (Hungarian poles on occasions also have a yellow mark). This is one of the easiest ways to identify Romania. Romanian and Hungarian utility poles have holes that extend all the way to the ground whilst Polish utility poles have holes that stop 50cm before the ground. Romanian utility poles are thicker and wider than Hungarian utility poles.
In this image, there is a German word with ‘ss’ used as opposed to ‘ß’. The ‘ss’ is used in Switzerland whilst the ‘ß’ is used in Austria and Germany.
Houses in Bermuda are rather unique looking. They are typically painted a semi-faded shade of a bright colour. In addition, the roofs are almost always completely white. The roofs look like they are newly painted and they are so white, they blend in with the sky. The houses’ window frames are also painted with this same white colour.
If you see these three black orbs on the camera, you are on the A3 road. This is the major road that runs from just outside Nairobi to the north-east of the country.
The Aland Islands situated between Finland and Sweden and belonging to Finland have roads with short dashes on the side- Sweden style. The roads also have a reddish tinge to them.
The rear of Uruguayan bollards are yellow. They feature a yellow coloured, rectangular reflector near the top.
Plates from Bhutan have a unique red colour.
This map shows the colour of the Kenyan street view car across Kenya. The black lines on the map indicate where the black street view car is found- this is mainly stretching from Nairobi to Mombasa as well as from Nairobi up north to Marsabit. The black car is also found on the north-western outskirts of Nairobi. The silver street view car (as denoted by the gray lines on the map) is concentrated across the west of the country (it’s in every point west of Nairobi). It’s also found in parts of Nairobi and small sections slightly east of Nairobi. Note: Kenya got new coverage in October of 2022 so the Kenyan coverage is now more vast than the above map. (Map Source: Tall Impala).
Diamond shaped, yellow warning signs are found across South America. They are also found across North America and a few other countries around the world.
The Appalachians running down the eastern side of the country tend to be greener, smaller is size and more akin to rolling hills than the Rocky Mountains.
This map of Botswana shows the general regions as characterised by the landscape. In the images below, an example is provided for each coloured section. (Image source: Jasper Woodard).
The Canary Islands stand out for their volcanic rocks, blue skies and steep drops into the ocean.
Note the phone number prefix ‘063’. Using the above map, we can determine that we are around Siem Reap.
This is the warning sign used throughout Africa. It looks like the European warning signs (and the sign used in parts of Asia). This warning sign is different to the yellow diamond used throughout North and South America, New Zealand and Australia.
North Macedonian Street View coverage is fairly sparse. It centres around Skopje, the larger North Macedonian cities and the main roads connecting these cities (which are well maintained). Very few small towns are featured.
Like in Ukraine, Russia often has their guardrails and some curbs painted in alternating black and white colours.
Everywhere I look in Indonesia, I see ads on shops that feature only the three colours- red, white and black.
The most popular European cars. I find cars in Europe as being the most useful in helping identify which country I’m in.
The houses in Switzerland are often wooden and multi-storey with terracotta-coloured slanting roofs. Swiss houses are known for their high number of window shutters.
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 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.
In Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Czechia, you will sometimes see tape on the Street View car’s antenna.
The Slovak language has more z’s than most other languages. Like Czech, the letter p also appears abundantly. Slovak contains the letters: á, é, í, ý, č, š and ž. Slovak is very similar to Czech. To distinguish the language from Czech look for ä, ľ, ĺ, ŕ, ô, dz and dž. Slovak also has more “ia” and “ie” within their words compared to Czech. In general, the Slovak language reminds me a bit of Polish but with more marks over the letters.
This map shows virtually all of the current Rwandan Street View coverage. The coverage is essentially the northern half of the Rwandan capital of Kigali.
Fortunately for GeoGuessr players, pinpointing in Rwanda is relatively easy thanks to the prevalence of clear street signs at most intersections. The northern half of Kigali (where the bulk of the coverage is) has street signs that begin with ‘KG’ followed by a number. The southern parts of Kigali (where there is very little coverage), has street signs that being with ‘KN’ or ‘KK’. In general, the lower road numbers (1 and 2-digit road numbers) in Kigali are more major roads whilst 3-digit road numbers tend to be smaller roads. By zooming in on the map, it shouldn’t take too long to find the KG street number that you are located on.
The orange area on the above map (the western half of Botswana): There should be some sand visible that is like the sand you see on a beach- fine granules and soft. There is also patchy grass as opposed to the entire ground being covered in grass.
American Samoa has blue license plates.
English words often appear on shop signs in the Netherlands.
If you spawn on the island of Reunion, in the Indian Ocean, the Street View car’s bars will be visible as will the side view mirrors and sides of the car. There is also black tape on the back, right bar of the Street View car.
The French island of Corsica often has shorter, white dashes on the sides of the road. It also has mountains in the centre of the island and a Mediterranean feel elsewhere.
If you spot winter coverage in Russia, you are most likely going to be positioned somewhere between Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
Although they are rarely found in smaller towns, high-rise apartment buildings that look like one another are common in Romanian cities.
Smaller Serbian signs often have a visible white outline.
South Korea has diagonal yellow and black stripes on many of its utility poles, much like Taiwan. It also similarly has cylindrical utility poles. Taiwanese stripes mainly stretch all the way to the ground whilst the stripes in South Korea shouldn’t reach the ground.
The second most common license plate in Albania has a red section on the left. The most common Albanian plates are listed further up and have a blue strip on each side.
Colombia often has colourful houses with corrugated iron roofs.
Most of the time, if you pan down in the Baltic countries, you will see a significantly blurred car with jagged edges. This car is also commonly visible in Croatia. Other parts of Eastern Europe tend to have a more subtle blurring of the car.
Hanover street signs have this style. Note the metal ring around the sign which helps distinguish it from Berlin signs.
Ukrainian Cyrillic stands out as it contains the letter ‘i’ (І) whereas this letter doesn’t occur in other Cyrillic writing countries. Ukrainian Cyrillic also contains thee more unique letters that only occur in their writing system: ґ, є and ї.
The Street View car is visible in Sri Lanka if you pan down. It has a blue stripe, a white stripe and a red stripe (resembling the French flag). This is visible most of the time.
The second thing you may see if you pan down in Nigeria is the Street View car’s bars. If you see these bars in Nigeria, they will have a yellow and black pattern on them. This bar pattern is unique to Nigeria.
Buildings in Gibraltar are typically white or beige in colour. They are generally multi-story with high rise buildings being particularly common.
South Korean roads generally have a yellow, continuous, centre line and white, continuous edge lines.
In the Estonian city of Tartu you will mainly (but not always) see pedestrian signs on blue and white striped poles.
This is a Slovenian kilometre marker which also houses information about the road number- in this case road number 439.
Malaysia also sometimes has another fairly unique road feature- thick, yellow lines that run at 90 degrees to the road.
If a road has markings in South America then there is almost certainly some form of yellow centre line. This may be a dashed yellow line, a continuous yellow line or even a double yellow centre line. Chile is an exception where white centre lines are predominant, except for the south.
Note the short, sprawling trees now having leaves.
The back of the Street View car appears white in much of South America. I tend to see a floating white section of the car (like the one pictured above) most commonly in Peru, Bolivia and Colombia.
New Zealand’s speed limit signs look different to Australia’s and are circular cut-outs. In contrast, Australian speed limit signs appear on a white rectangle.
Many rear license plates in Corsica are yellow with the vertical, blue left stripe of the standard European plates.
Italy has a diverse landscape. Most of the country has a dry, Mediterranean feel. Rolling hills are also common throughout the country.
The Romanian language stands out to me as the letters s and t can have a squiggle beneath them: ş and ƫ. Romanian also has ă and ȃ.
Slovenia tends to have a majority of standard European license plates featuring the blue stripe on the left. It does however have a reasonable portion (around a quarter) or completely white license plates. These whit plates are rather rare in Europe with Switzerland and Croatia being the most geographically similar countries to have them.
A table indicating where to look for specific Japanese national highway numbers (the roads denoted by rounded triangles containing a number). An explanation of this table occurs in the next paragraph. (Source and more info on Japanese roads: https://sites.google.com/site/roadnumberingsystems/home/countries/japan)
South Korea’s Street View coverage was largely taken in the winter. As a result, seeing trees without leaves, snow and fairly bleak scenery is common throughout the country.
Approximately 90% of Tasmania’s coverage is generation 2 coverage. This means you should see the circular blur if you pan down, a halo around the sun and imagery of an inferior quality with brighter colours. Across the Australian mainland, generation 2 coverage occurs around 20% of the time. This is mainly in remote, rural areas (often with reddish dirt) that look dissimilar to Tasmania. If I see generation 2 coverage in Australia in somewhere vaguely resembling Tasmania, I will guess Tasmania.