HEADCOUNT
Day 138 · Oct 24, 2026
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Headcount is a free daily population guessing game — a population Wordle for geography: draw one loop anywhere on a world map and score on how close the real number of people inside comes to the day's target.
Full rules, scoring table, and strategy tips: how to play Headcount.
Every day there are five different targets — the first today is 600,000 people — and your loop can be any shape, any size. Lock it in and the game counts the real population inside what you drew: the nearer you land to the target, the higher your round score out of 100. Add all five rounds for a total out of 500.
The official attempt is committed blind: no live count, just your read of the glowing population map. That keeps the daily leaderboard a test of density intuition, not patience. After all five official rounds are locked, practice gives you new targets. Submit each loop to reveal its population and score using the same calculation as the daily game.
Headcount is FlightQ's population map game. Explore more free map games built around countries, 3D cities, airport networks, transit lines, and borders.
Population data: GHS-POP R2023A (2025 epoch), EC Joint Research Centre. Headcount aggregates the GHS-POP 1 km global population grid (2025 epoch) into the playable map. Population is modeled from census and satellite data, so treat every count as a careful estimate rather than a head-by-head tally — the scoring is built around that, and a ±2% read still scores 98 or better. Daily and practice numbers are recomputed server-side using the same population grid selection and boundary rules. The browser map is a visual guide.
Enjoying Headcount? Rate it on Listdle
Headcount is a free daily population guessing game — a population Wordle for geography. Every day there are five different population targets. You draw a single loop anywhere on a world map — any shape, any size — and your job is to guess the population: your score depends on how close the real number of people living inside your loop comes to the target.
Yes. Headcount is a daily population guessing game in the Wordle mold: one puzzle a day, five shared population targets, and a total score out of 500. Instead of guessing letters, you read a world population map and guess the population inside the loop you draw. Come back tomorrow for five new targets.
Headcount uses GHS-POP from the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (2025 epoch), a global ~1 km population grid built from census and satellite data. Population is modeled, so every count is a careful estimate — scoring is designed around that, and a ±2% read still scores 98 or better.
Score = 100 × (1 − |log₁₀(enclosed ÷ target)|), floored at zero. The score cares about ratio, so 9.4M people against a 10M target scores 97.3, half or double the target scores 69.9, and being 10× off in either direction scores 0.
Play five official rounds each day, with no population count until you submit. Each round scores out of 100 and the five scores add up to 500. After all five, practice rounds reveal their population and score using the same calculation.
Yes. Every daily puzzle is free with no account required. Premium adds unlimited practice, advanced stats and global comparisons, the full Travel Passport, beta access, and an ad-free experience.