Europe Map Quiz

Europe is a map of extremes. Russia runs off the right-hand edge while Vatican City sits inside the city of Rome. Countries too small to click get a ring target, and you can zoom with the + and - buttons, the mouse wheel or a pinch.

Why Cyprus, Türkiye and the Caucasus are on this map

The set is the 44 countries the UN statistics division places in Europe, Vatican City included, plus five that straddle the line between Europe and Asia: Cyprus, Türkiye, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. All five belong to the Council of Europe and turn up in most lists of European countries, so leaving them out would leave a hole in the southeast corner. They also appear in the Asia map quiz.

Kosovo is an optional extra under the other territories setting. Our borders and names policy explains how we decide what counts as a country.

A sensible order to learn Europe

1. Big anchors first: Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Ukraine and Russia. Once these are fixed, every other country is a gap between them.
2. The north: Norway, Sweden and Finland side by side, Denmark on its peninsula below them, Iceland alone in the Atlantic. The Baltic states then run north to south in alphabetical order: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.
3. The middle belt: Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg in the west, then Switzerland, Austria, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary. Belarus sits north of Ukraine, and Moldova is squeezed between Ukraine and Romania.
4. The Balkans, down the Adriatic coast (below).
5. The Caucasus: Georgia on the Black Sea, Armenia inland to its south, Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea.
6. The microstates, once everything around them is solid.

The Balkans and the Slovakia/Slovenia trap

Most misses on this map happen south of Hungary. Work down the Adriatic: Slovenia, then Croatia, the long curved coastal country, with Bosnia and Herzegovina tucked behind it and almost cut off from the sea. Then Montenegro, Albania and Greece. Serbia is the landlocked block east of Bosnia, North Macedonia sits between Serbia and Greece, and Bulgaria faces the Black Sea.

Slovakia and Slovenia are the classic mix-up. Slovakia is the northern one, just under Poland, with its capital Bratislava on the Danube right beside the Austrian and Hungarian borders. Slovenia is the small southern one between Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia, with a short stretch of coast and Ljubljana as its capital.

Finding the microstates

Seven countries are small enough that you find them by their neighbours, not their shape. Learn the address and the click follows.

• Vatican City: inside Rome.
• San Marino: inside Italy, inland from the Adriatic coast.
• Monaco: on France's Mediterranean coast, close to the Italian border.
• Andorra: in the Pyrenees between France and Spain, capital Andorra la Vella.
• Liechtenstein: between Switzerland and Austria, capital Vaduz.
• Luxembourg: where Belgium, France and Germany meet.
• Malta: a small island group south of Sicily, capital Valletta.

Capitals worth a second look

Type mode can ask for capitals as well as names, and Europe has a few that catch people out. Türkiye's capital is Ankara, not Istanbul. Bern is the Swiss federal city and seat of government, though Swiss law names no formal capital. Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands even though the government and parliament sit in The Hague. Four capitals simply share the country's name: Luxembourg, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City.

To practice recall rather than recognition, the European countries quiz asks you to type all 49 from memory. The blank map of Europe prints this same map in blank, outline, numbered and labelled versions, and the flags of Europe quiz covers the same set.

All the countries and capitals in this quiz

UN M49 Europe (44 countries including Vatican City) plus Cyprus, Türkiye, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, which span Europe and Asia. Borders and names policy.

Names and capitals: CIA World Factbook (final edition), checked against Wikidata and Natural Earth. Flags: flag-icons, each checked against Wikimedia Commons. See sources. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.