Worldle tips: how to use the distance, the arrow and the percentage
Updated October 22, 2026 · 5 min read
Each wrong guess in Worldle hands you a distance, an arrow and a percentage, and each of those follows a rule that the game's FAQ spells out. This page sets out those rules, from Worldle's FAQ, its settings and its site code as they stood on October 22, 2026, and what each one means for the guess you make next.
The distance runs from centre to centre
Worldle measures from the middle of the country you guessed to the middle of the answer, not from one border to the other. The FAQ's own example is the United States and Canada: they share a long border, yet guessing one when the answer is the other shows about 2,260 km. So a guess right next door can still look far off, and a large number does not by itself mean you are on the wrong continent.
That is why the FAQ says the distance also tells you something about size. If you guess a neighbour and still see a big number, the two centres are far apart, so at least one of the two countries must be large; if the one you guessed is small, the large one is the answer. Settings let you switch between kilometres and miles.
The arrow has only eight directions
The arrow points from your guess toward the answer. Behind it, the game works out a bearing to one of sixteen compass points, but it only has eight arrows to draw, and its code sends north-north-east, north-east and east-north-east all to the same diagonal arrow. The FAQ warns that the arrow may not point in exactly the right direction for this reason.
In practice a straight up, down or sideways arrow is the sharper clue, since it only stands for its own compass point, while a diagonal arrow can mean anything from north-north-east round to east-north-east. The FAQ also says Worldle never sends you in unintuitive directions such as over the North or South Pole: the arrow follows a steady compass heading, which is a straight line on a Mercator world map, rather than the shortest path around the globe.
What the percentage and the squares mean
The proximity percentage is the same distance on a fixed scale. In the game's code it is the share of 20,000 km, about half the way around the Earth, that is left once your distance is taken away, rounded down and never below zero. The FAQ puts the ends simply: 0% means you guessed the opposite side of the world, and 100% means you found the country.
- Each percentage point is worth about 200 km.
- 50% means the centres are about 10,000 km apart.
- 90% means the centre of the answer is within about 2,000 km of the centre of your guess, and 95% within about 1,000 km.
- The share grid rounds your percentage down to the nearest 10 and draws it as five squares: a green square is 20% and a yellow one 10%, so the FAQ's example of 72% becomes three green, one yellow and one black.
- A setting swaps the proximity figure for a size percentage, which compares the land areas of your guess and the answer, useful when you know the region but not how big the country is.
How the answers are chosen
Worldle's answer list follows the ISO 3166-1 standard, and its FAQ says that places some people count as countries, such as Scotland, Puerto Rico and Hong Kong, are not accepted. Pick names from the list as you type rather than trusting your own spelling. The daily answer is random, but the FAQ names a few rules that narrow it down.
- No country repeats within 100 days, so an answer you met in the last three months or so will not be today's.
- Countries under 5,000 km² do not repeat within seven days, which keeps very small places from coming up in quick succession.
- Two days in a row will not both be in Africa, or both in Asia: if yesterday's answer was African, today's is not.
- The outline has no scale, so a tiny island and a huge country can fill the frame the same way. The FAQ's advice: if you are thinking small and getting nowhere, try thinking big.
- Settings can make it harder: hide the outline and play from the clues alone, or rotate it at random so its usual orientation gives nothing away.
Practise between puzzles
The FAQ's own advice for improving is to study outlines, especially coastlines, island chains and odd shapes, to look at a world map often, to use flashcards and to be mindful of scale, and above all to use Worldle's Practice Mode, which matches countries with their maps, flags, languages and more for experience points. It also suggests other games to widen your map knowledge. These are the ones on our list that train each of Worldle's clues.
Recommended in Worldle's own FAQ. Building chains of neighbours over land teaches what lies next to what, which turns an arrow from a vague direction into a short list of likely countries.
Drawing a country from memory shows quickly which outlines you only half know, and its score tells you how much coastline you missed and how much land you made up.
Choose the continent where your Worldle guesses most often go astray and run its countries quiz until the shapes and their positions stick together.
With no outline at all, every guess is about using closeness, which makes it good practice for choosing a second guess that cuts the map down after a poor first one.
Questions people ask
Why does Worldle say a neighbouring country is so far away?
Because distances run between the centres of the two countries, not between their borders. The FAQ's example puts the United States and Canada about 2,260 km apart even though they touch. Globle measures the other way, between the nearest borders, so there a neighbour counts as the closest possible guess.
How do I keep my Worldle streak if I miss a day?
Worldle has Lifesavers. You earn one by playing all of the day's rounds, the main puzzle and the bonus rounds, you can hold up to two, and one is used automatically when you miss a day. A free Teuteuf account keeps your streak and its calendar across devices.
Can I play Worldle without the outline?
Yes. Under difficulty modifiers in Settings you can hide the country image and play from the distance, arrow and percentage alone, or turn on random rotation so the familiar orientation of a shape does not give it away.
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