Countries word search: 78 nations to find

Play a countries word search with 78 everyday country names from every inhabited continent, from FIJI and PERU to PHILIPPINES and SWITZERLAND, twelve at a time on a 12×12 grid. It suits a geography lesson as well as a coffee break. No app, no sign-up and nothing to dismiss before play; it works offline and is fully playable from the keyboard.

How to play the countries word search

1. Twelve countries hide in straight lines, forwards or backwards.
2. Drag from the first letter to the last, or tap both in turn.
3. A correct find is banded in colour and struck off; wrong picks are ignored.
4. Hint marks the first letter of a word you have not found.
5. Try the 20×20 grid for 28 countries at once; the two eleven-letter names appear only on grids of 12×12 and up.

Countries word search strategy

Country names are long by word search standards, between six and seven letters on average, and many of them end the same way. That changes how you should look.

Do not hunt the endings

Twenty-one names end in IA (INDIA, AUSTRIA, NIGERIA, CROATIA, MALAYSIA and more), and many others end in A. Scanning for a final A or IA turns up dozens of false starts, because A is one of the commonest fill letters. Hunt the start of the name instead, or better, its rarest letter.

Use Z, J, X and K

BRAZIL, ZAMBIA, TANZANIA, VENEZUELA and SWITZERLAND carry a Z; JAPAN, JORDAN, JAMAICA and FIJI a J; MEXICO the only X. KENYA, KOREA, DENMARK, PAKISTAN and UKRAINE have a K. These letters are rare in the fill, so each one you find probably belongs to a country in your list.

Think about length

SWITZERLAND and PHILIPPINES need eleven cells in a line, so on a 12×12 they start or end in the first or second cell of a row, column or long diagonal: check near the edges. The four-letter names, PERU, CUBA, FIJI, IRAN, LAOS, MALI and CHAD, are the hardest and are best left for a final row-by-row sweep.

Words in the countries word search

The list has 78 countries, written with their everyday short names, one word each, which is why two-word names such as New Zealand are not on it. Names run from four letters (PERU, CUBA, FIJI, IRAN, LAOS, MALI, CHAD) to eleven (SWITZERLAND, PHILIPPINES), and seven-letter names such as GERMANY, IRELAND, JAMAICA and VIETNAM are the most common length.

Every inhabited continent is there. Europe runs from PORTUGAL and ICELAND to UKRAINE and GEORGIA; Africa from MOROCCO and SENEGAL to ETHIOPIA and TANZANIA; Asia from TURKEY to JAPAN and INDONESIA; the Americas from CANADA to URUGUAY and PARAGUAY; and Oceania through AUSTRALIA and FIJI.

Some spellings reward a careful eye. PHILIPPINES has one L and a double P, MOROCCO a double C and GREECE a double E. URUGUAY and PARAGUAY both end in UAY. A few names double as ordinary English words, TURKEY, CHAD, JORDAN and GEORGIA among them, and TURKEY also turns up in the food, birds and holidays themes.

Stats, hints and printables

The timer pauses when the tab is hidden, and Countries stats (played, won, win rate, best and average time) stay in this browser. The first two hints are free; once ads are enabled, more cost a short ad or a 30-second wait. Every grid has a code such as A7K3Q to replay or share, and the printable page makes countries sheets.

Plays anywhere, no app, no account

Long country names stay readable on a phone because the 12×12 grid fills the screen width, and every letter can be selected with the arrow keys and Space. Tidy Puzzles runs entirely in your browser: there is no app to install, no account to create and no interstitial before you can play. After the first visit the game also works offline, because each puzzle is generated on your device from a seed. Every board can be played with the keyboard alone, on a phone or a desktop, and your stats and unfinished puzzles stay in this browser rather than on a server.