Themed mode
Rivers
Spawn somewhere along a major river.
Difficulty
Moderate
Locations
24,551
Data source
Natural Earth · rivers
How rivers plays
River mode drops you somewhere along one of the 24,000+ named rivers in the Natural Earth dataset. River bends, levee patterns, oxbow lakes, and floodplain agriculture all have distinct regional fingerprints — the way the Mississippi meanders is unmistakably American, the way the Mekong braids is unmistakably southeast Asian.
The pool covers everything from the Amazon, Nile, and Yangtze down to medium-sized regional rivers. The challenge in river mode is that the river itself does not tell you which country you are in — you have to read the agriculture, settlement, and embankment style on its banks.
What you'll learn
- Distinguishing river types — meandering, braided, anastomosing, straight
- Reading floodplain agriculture (rice paddies, sugar cane, levee farming)
- Recognising regional embankment and dyke styles
- Using river colour (silt load, glacial milk, blackwater) as a regional clue
Play Rivers now
Free, no signup required for most modes. Test your geography from satellite imagery.
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