How to play
StateTap is two free daily map games, one for Texas and one for the whole country. Every day brings five new clues, the same for everyone. Tap where you think each one is, and score by how close you land.
The two games
- StateTap USA
- Find three cities on a map of all 50 states, then two Great Americans clues: a famous fact about an important American, answered by tapping the city where it happened, such as where George Washington took the oath as the first president.
- StateTap Texas
- Three Texas places from four themes (a city or landmark, a county, a park or wildlife spot, a moment in Texas history), then two Texas legends: a famous fact about a great Texan, such as where Sam Houston is buried.
Scoring
Each clue is worth up to 100 points. Every place has a real footprint: a city's area, a county's borders, a park's land. Tap inside it for a bullseye. Miss, and points drop the farther you are from its edge. Clues get harder as you go, and the last three count double and triple, for a best possible day of 1,000.
- Bullseye (100)
- 80 or more
- 50 or more
- 20 or more
- Under 20
When you finish, copy your result to share it. The squares show how close you got without giving away the answers.
Questions
When is there a new map?
At midnight where you are. Each game has one puzzle per day.
Can I play on a keyboard?
Yes. Select the map, use the arrow keys to move it under the crosshair, press + or − to zoom, and press Enter to drop your pin.
Do I need an account?
No. There are no accounts, ads or trackers. Your stats and level live in your own browser, and the leaderboard knows you only by a random player number and the name you pick.
Can I play a day I missed?
Yes. Tap the date above the clue to pick any of the last two weeks. Past days count toward your stats and the all-time leaderboard, but not your streak or today's board.
Sources and credits
- Satellite imagery: NASA Blue Marble (NASA Earth Observatory and GIBS), via FreeTiler. Public domain.
- Close-up U.S. imagery: © ESA WorldCover project 2021, contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2021) processed by the ESA WorldCover consortium. CC BY 4.0.
- County and state outlines: U.S. Census Bureau cartographic boundary files, via us-atlas.
- Mexico and neighboring land: Natural Earth, via world-atlas.
- City and town locations: GeoNames, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Clue write-ups are original and link to their sources, including the Handbook of Texas, Texas Parks & Wildlife, the National Park Service and the Texas Historical Commission.
- Maps drawn with D3. Type set in Lilita One, Rubik and Overpass (SIL Open Font License).
Privacy
There are no accounts, ads, cookies or third-party scripts. Your guesses, stats and level are saved in your own browser's local storage. Clear your browser data to remove them.
When you finish a game, your guesses and score go to the StateTap leaderboard with a random player number your browser makes up, plus the name you choose, if you choose one. Nothing else about you is collected. To stop spam, each network address can only send so many scores a day; it's kept only as a scrambled code and thrown away after a day.