Blank World Map: Label It Online or Print It

How to use the blank world map

The map above is an outline of the world on the Equal Earth projection, with every country's border and no names. It works two ways.

As an online labeler. Press Start practice and a word bank of country names appears under the prompt. Drag a name onto its country, or tap the name and then tap the country; that second way works best on phones, tablets and Chromebooks. Correct labels lock in place. If you drop a name on the wrong country, the map tells you which country you picked. After three misses, the right country is shown and the name returns to the bank for later.

As a printable. The printables strip on this page has three world sheets and three region sheets, all free PDFs:

Ways to use a blank world map

A blank map is one of the most flexible tools in geography. Some ideas for home and classroom:

• Label from memory. The classic test. Start with the continents and oceans, then add countries you've studied. Compare with the labeled map when you're done.
• Color the continents. Give each continent its own color and the oceans blue. It's a great first map activity for young children.
• Track a story. Mark every country mentioned in a read-aloud, a history lesson or a novel. Over a year, the map becomes a record of what your family has learned.
• Plan a pretend trip. Draw a route around the world and list the countries you'd pass through, then look up each country's capital in the world capitals quiz.
• Map the news. When a country is in the news, find and shade it.
• Weather and climate. Shade the deserts, rainforests and polar regions in different colors, then compare with a climate map.
• Family history. Mark where relatives were born or have lived, and draw lines to show how the family moved over the generations.
• Compare sizes. Because this map keeps true sizes, children can compare countries directly: trace Brazil and the United States, or Greenland and Africa, and talk about why other maps make them look different.

Blank, outline, political and physical maps

Map names can be confusing, and teachers and worksheets use them in slightly different ways:

• Political map: shows countries (and often states, provinces and capitals), usually each in its own color, with names. The labeled world map is a simple political map.
• Physical map: shows the land itself: mountains, plains, rivers, deserts and ocean depths, often with shaded relief. Country borders may be thin or missing.
• Blank or outline map: a political or physical map with the names removed, made for labeling. This page's map is a blank political map, since it keeps the borders.
• Continents map: a blank map with only the continents' outlines and no country borders, the simplest kind for young children. The continents and oceans worksheet is one.

Each kind teaches something different. Political maps teach where countries are; physical maps teach why people live where they do, along rivers, coasts and fertile plains. A good geography routine uses both, and a blank map is the bridge between learning and checking what you know.

Why the online labeler helps

Labeling is harder than recognizing. On a quiz with highlighted countries, you only need to recognize the right shape. On a blank map, you have to recall where each country is with nothing but borders to go on. That makes it the best practice for a paper map test.

The labeler gives instant feedback, which a paper map can't. Each wrong drop names the country you actually picked, so every mistake teaches you a location. And because the word bank shrinks as you go, the last few names are the ones you really need to study.

How many countries should my child label?

It depends on age and goals. A reasonable progression:

1. Ages 5 to 8: the seven continents and five oceans, using the continents and oceans quiz and its worksheet.
2. Ages 8 to 10: the countries of one continent at a time, starting with South America (12) or North America (23).
3. Ages 10 to 13: the larger countries of the world, which is this page's default set of 156.
4. Ages 13 and up: all 197, with Small countries turned on and the magnifiers to help with Europe and the Caribbean.

Many US states include world geography in middle school social studies, and some high school courses ask students to label most of the world's countries. Check your state's standards or your curriculum for specifics.

About this map

The outlines come from Natural Earth, a free, public-domain map data set used by atlases and newsrooms. The map uses the Equal Earth projection, published in 2018, which shows countries at their true relative sizes. Antarctica is left off to make room for the countries. Borders follow the lines countries control on the ground, with the common atlas conventions for disputed areas described in the FAQ.

Keep learning

When labeling feels easy, take the timed world map quiz or the world capitals quiz. Literature-based geography and history programs, like the ones below, give children stories to attach to the places they label, and many may be covered by scholarship programs on Edulist.