How to learn the countries of Europe

Seven groups, from the edges in

• The north (5). Norway, Sweden and Finland side by side from west to east, Denmark below them, Iceland out in the Atlantic.
• The islands in the west (2). The United Kingdom and Ireland.
• The west (10). Portugal and Spain on their peninsula, France above them, then Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, Germany, and the Alps with Switzerland and Austria. Italy is the boot.
• The Baltic three. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, from north to south. They are also in alphabetical order.
• The middle (4). Poland on top, Czechia and Slovakia below it side by side, Hungary under Slovakia.
• The east (4). Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and little Moldova tucked between Ukraine and Romania.
• The south-east (11). Down the Adriatic coast: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, then Greece. Inland: Serbia, Kosovo and North Macedonia. On the Black Sea: Romania above Bulgaria.

That leaves the six smallest, which are best learned last and by their neighbours (below).

The six smallest, by their neighbours

• Andorra sits in the Pyrenees, between France and Spain.
• Monaco is a dot on the French coast, close to Italy.
• Liechtenstein is squeezed between Switzerland and Austria.
• San Marino and Vatican City are both inside Italy: San Marino towards the north-east, the Vatican inside Rome.
• Malta is the island south of Sicily.

Names that sound alike

• Slovakia and Slovenia. Slovakia was the second half of Czechoslovakia, so it lies next to Czechia. Slovenia is the one on the sea, next to Italy.
• Latvia and Lithuania. Alphabetical order runs north to south: Latvia is above Lithuania.
• Sweden and Switzerland. Sweden is the long one in the north; Switzerland is the small one in the Alps.
• Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia. Serbia is the largest of the three and the furthest south, in the middle of the Balkans with no coast.

When two names keep swapping in your head, learn the pair together and say out loud what tells them apart. A pair learned as a pair stops being a problem.

Practise it

Take one group at a time. Play it on Name it until the names come without thinking, then switch to Find it, which asks the harder question: given only the name, where is it? What you miss comes back sooner in Review, and what you know comes back less often, so a few minutes a day is enough.

• Countries of Europe: all 45. Set it to ten questions at a time to begin with.
• Countries of the Balkans: the group most people find hardest, on its own. It has a guide of its own.
• Capitals of Europe and Flags of Europe, once the countries sit.