Sound Geography Game: Guess the Country by Ear
An online geography game where you guess the place by sound alone: a metro train, a bazaar, church bells or a savanna at night. Pin your guess on the world map — the closer, the more points. A second mode, “Guess the language”, plays a phrase in one of 40 languages.
How to play
1
Listen
Press “Listen”: the sound plays for about 18 seconds, as many times as you like.
2
Mark the place
Click the map or type a city or country.
3
Guess
See where the sound was recorded and how many kilometers you missed by.
Listen to streets, markets and stations and pin the place on the map
Click the map where you think the sound was recorded, or type a place below.
Which language is this?
About the sounds
The list gives away the answers — open it after you play.
Place sounds are field recordings from freesound.org that their authors released into the public domain (CC0). We cut 15–25 second excerpts, mixed them to mono and evened out the loudness.
- Amazon rainforest, Acre, Brazil — «Amazon Forest», jonasrocha, CC0
- Amsterdam, Netherlands — «Amsterdam tram bell sound and general atmosphere around the Leidsestraat», hz37, CC0
- Astana, Kazakhstan — «Brass band plays mixture of Russian hit songs at the riverfront of Astana, Jul 16, XY mics.wav», gladkiy, CC0
- Athens, Greece — «Music in Greek taverna», nickcase, CC0
- Bali, Indonesia — «Bali Gamelan Orchestra rehearsal.wav», tripboxer, CC0
- Bangkok, Thailand — «Street Ambience, Chinatown, Bangkok, Thailand (Feb 22, 2019)», marc.om, CC0
- Beijing, China — «Red Choir in Beijing Park.wav», Refrain, CC0
- Berlin, Germany — «Berlin Subway U5 Metro U-Bahn BVG 96kHz.flac», qubodup, CC0
- Budapest, Hungary — «Indoor environment at Budapest Grand Market Hall», darthbaul, CC0
- Buenos Aires, Argentina — «Buyers with a megaphone drive down the street in a pickup truck», cyberthilop, CC0
- Cairo, Egypt — «Khan El Khalili bazaar .wav», 3bagbrew, CC0
- Cape Coast, Ghana — «Drumming Show, Ghana», shaggyjon, CC0
- Caquiaviri, Altiplano, Bolivia — «Grupo Musical tocando en la Fiesta San Antonio Abad en el pueblo de Caquiaviri, Bolivia», redwoodword, CC0
- Dakar, Senegal — «Dakar 5h du matin / Dakar 5 AM», indieground, CC0
- Dubai, United Arab Emirates — «dubai_goldmarket.flac», nikitralala, CC0
- Dublin, Ireland — «IRISH PUB the cobblestone.WAV», traggeldy, CC0
- Gondar, Ethiopia — «Chanting_Prayers.aif», ikbenraar, CC0
- Gourdin Island, Antarctica — «Pinguin Colony at Gourdin Island in the Antarctica Peninsula», al.barbosa, CC0
- Haukadalur geothermal valley, Iceland — «Bubbling Hot Spring», tammarpokk, CC0
- Havana, Cuba — «Cuba, Havana, Music Salsa (Bodeguita).wav», MaximeBedot, CC0
- Helsinki, Finland — «Announcement Helsinki railway station - Turku - XY stereo.wav», jakobhandersen, CC0
- Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam — «HCMC_traffic.WAV», polymorpheva, CC0
- Hong Kong, China — «HongKong Stop-Lights», al.barbosa, CC0
- Invercargill, New Zealand — «AMBForst Native birds in the bush reserve, light dripping after rain, Invercargill, New Zealand», vhio, CC0
- Istanbul, Türkiye — «Muezzins singing in Istanbul», nickcase, CC0
- Kyoto, Japan — «kiyomizu.aif», Heigh-hoo, CC0
- Lhasa, China — «Tibetans reciting prayers at the Jokhang ཇོ་ཁང།», djgriffin, CC0
- Lima, Peru — «CHL_vendedores de palta fuerte_calle Capón», Millesplateux, CC0
- Lisbon, Portugal — «City ambience, church and tramway at night, São Pedro de Alcântara, Lisbon, Portugal», abomfim, CC0
- London, United Kingdom — «London Underground - Last Train to Brixton.wav», 3bagbrew, CC0
- Maasai Mara, Kenya — «African savanna 2.wav», AugustSandberg, CC0
- Madrid, Spain — «El afilador / Knife sharpener / Mobile grinding shop», nomadas, CC0
- Marrakesh, Morocco — «Jemaa el-Fnaa, Marrakech (soundscape)», bushtobazaar, CC0
- Mexico City, Mexico — «DANZA CONCHEROS», tztozs, CC0
- Moscow, Russia — «Kremlin chimes on Red Square at midnight», Torror, CC0
- Moscow, Russia — «Moscow subway inside the train», complex_waveform, CC0
- Negombo, Sri Lanka — «Street Ambience of Sri Lanka», florianreichelt, CC0
- New Delhi, India — «SE 4CH DELHI ATMO cars horns traffic jam busy street (Binaural conversion & shorter version).mp3», SoundEnsemble, CC0
- New York, United States — «NYC Subway. A train express on northern Manhattan. 10 PM.m4a», olofgud, CC0
- Novosibirsk, Russia — «Announcement in Russian, train breaks check and water supply drain. Novosibirsk station», ldezem, CC0
- Omsk, Russia — «ChurchBells.flac», Zabuhailo, CC0
- Paris, France — «Paris Street Sound Recording (accordion sound)», lmartins, CC0
- Perth, Australia — «Kookaburra Australian Jackass.wav», dbache, CC0
- Petén jungle, Guatemala — «Howler Monkeys», Lenguaverde, CC0
- Prague, Czechia — «Prague Tram», zachrau, CC0
- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — «Ipanema Beach Ambience in Rio De Janeiro», felix.blume, CC0
- Saint Petersburg, Russia — «190901_18 Arc ambience, close to Palace square in St. Petersburg», gladkiy, CC0
- San Francisco, United States — «Cable Car Leaving Stop», mhtaylor67, CC0
- Seoul, South Korea — «Pedestrian Crossing Seoul.wav», 3bagbrew, CC0
- Seville, Spain — «Sevilla Procession Brass.wav», alorange, CC0
- Skovorodino, Amur Oblast, Russia — «Train station Siberia winter», Martin.Sadoux, CC0
- Swiss Alps, Switzerland — «Alpenhorn Kleine Scheidigg.mp3», DangerLaef, CC0
- Tanna Island, Vanuatu — «Volcano Mount Yasur, Tanna Island, from the bottom», felix.blume, CC0
- Tashkent, Uzbekistan — «Karnay», artemditkovsky, CC0
- Tbilisi, Georgia — «Sameba Kids Choir - 1.wav», baliatishauri, CC0
- Tehran, Iran — «Persian bazaar in Teheran, Iran», nickcase, CC0
- Tokyo, Japan — «train from ebisu to shibuya 恵比寿», djgriffin, CC0
- Vancouver, Canada — «Hockey arena goal horn with crowd applause», SEF7, CC0
- Venice, Italy — «Fish market Venice.wav», Refrain, CC0
- Yangon, Myanmar — «Crows_Bells_voices in Bkg_Schwedagon.WAV», Annasusnenolas, CC0
Speech recordings come from the FLEURS dataset by Google (A. Conneau et al., 2022), licensed CC BY 4.0. Clips are shortened to 12 seconds and loudness-matched. FLEURS on Hugging Face, license CC BY 4.0.
- Amharic — 3 recordings
- Arabic — 3 recordings
- Armenian — 3 recordings
- Cantonese — 3 recordings
- Czech — 3 recordings
- Dutch — 3 recordings
- English — 3 recordings
- Finnish — 3 recordings
- French — 3 recordings
- Georgian — 3 recordings
- German — 3 recordings
- Greek — 3 recordings
- Hebrew — 3 recordings
- Hindi — 3 recordings
- Hungarian — 3 recordings
- Icelandic — 3 recordings
- Indonesian — 3 recordings
- Italian — 3 recordings
- Japanese — 3 recordings
- Kazakh — 3 recordings
- Korean — 3 recordings
- Lithuanian — 3 recordings
- Mandarin Chinese — 3 recordings
- Mongolian — 3 recordings
- Māori — 3 recordings
- Persian — 3 recordings
- Polish — 3 recordings
- Portuguese — 3 recordings
- Russian — 3 recordings
- Spanish — 3 recordings
- Swahili — 3 recordings
- Swedish — 3 recordings
- Tamil — 3 recordings
- Thai — 3 recordings
- Turkish — 3 recordings
- Ukrainian — 3 recordings
- Vietnamese — 3 recordings
- Welsh — 3 recordings
- Yoruba — 3 recordings
- Zulu — 3 recordings
Published
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