Matching Game: Countries and Capitals

Flip two cards at a time and match each country to its capital. Every card says whether it is a Country or a Capital, and a pair is always one of each. The game counts a mistake when you miss a match on a card you have already seen.

How to remember the capitals#

Link each country to its capital with a mental image. For Iceland and Reykjavík, you might picture someone raking a sheet of ice. The stranger the picture, the easier it is to recall. See how to create mnemonic images for more ways to build them, and the wiki page on learning geography for more examples.

To remember where each card is, give every position on the board a place in a memory palace, and walk back through the palace when you need to find a partner.

Try a bigger board#

Every game deals a different set of countries, so play again to meet new ones. Once you can clear a small board with only a few mistakes, move up a size.

Practice as flashcards#

The World Capitals deck on How to Get Better at Trivia asks about the same facts one card at a time, with a memory hook on every card, and sorts them into boxes as you learn.

Try another matching game or see all of our free memory games.