Fathom Geography Press Kit
Fathom Geography, or Fathom for short, is a free geography learning game on an interactive 3D globe. Here are descriptions, key facts, screenshots, logos and contact details for anyone writing about it.
At a glance
| Name | Fathom Geography (Fathom for short) |
|---|---|
| Type | Geography learning game and quiz |
| Price | All quizzes and all learning and progress features are free. The website has no ads. |
| Platforms | Fathom runs in modern browsers on Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, iPhone, iPad and Android. You can also install it from the browser and play offline. Apps for iPhone, iPad and Android are on the way. |
| Content | 182 quiz packs, 497 quizzes and more than 6,750 questions. Regional quizzes for 164+ countries |
| Learn more | All 6,767 questions have a photo and a few sentences about the place, 4,329 different places in all. |
| Learning | Missed questions are asked once more at the end of a short round, and spaced repetition (a four-box Leitner system) brings them back on later days |
| Languages | 17 (AR, DA, DE, EN, ES, FI, FR, IT, JA, KO, NL, NO, PL, PT, SV, TR, ZH) |
| Account | No. Your progress is saved on your device. A free account syncs it between devices and lets you follow other players. |
| Developer | Nicolay Kjærnet, an independent developer in Norway |
| Website | fathom-game.com (also fathomgeography.com) |
| Social | Instagram · TikTok · Reddit (fathomgeography) |
Descriptions
Short (44 words)
Fathom Geography is a free geography learning game built around an interactive 3D globe. Learn countries, capitals, flags, cities, landmarks, mountains, rivers and oceans by finding and naming them on the Earth itself. There's no paywall, and you don't need an account to start.
Long (340 words)
Fathom Geography is a free geography learning game built around an interactive 3D globe. Learn countries, capitals, flags, cities, landmarks, mountains, rivers and oceans by finding and naming them on the Earth itself. Instead of only testing what you already know, Fathom helps you learn as you play. Discover the places behind the answers, get another go at what you missed, and watch your knowledge grow across the world.
In a short round, the questions you miss are asked once more at the end, while they are still fresh in your mind. You get another try before you move on, not just a score. Learning continues between rounds. Fathom uses a four-box Leitner system for spaced repetition. Questions you struggle with come back sooner, and the ones you know come back after longer intervals, across days and weeks. Each round picks what you need most: questions due again, new ones, and the places you tend to mix up.
After you answer, Learn more shows a photograph and a few lines about the place: what it is, why it matters, and a fact or two. Where the place has them, these include its height, when it was built, or the year it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
To fathom something is to understand it deeply. A fathom is also a sailors' unit of depth, about 1.8 metres (six feet), once measured with a weighted line lowered into the sea. The dive shows how deep your knowledge goes. Every step a question climbs in spaced repetition takes the stone closer to the Challenger Deep. After a round in which you make progress, the stone sinks through the ocean's real zones, past the sea life that lives there and finds that earn badges.
182 quiz packs with more than 6,750 questions about countries, capitals, flags, cities, mountains, rivers, lakes, seas, islands, deserts, volcanoes and famous landmarks. Regional quizzes cover the states, provinces and regions of 164+ countries. All quizzes and all learning and progress features are free. The website has no ads.
What makes Fathom Geography different
- Learn from mistakes, not just scores. In a short round, the questions you miss are asked once more at the end, while they are still fresh in your mind. You get another try before you move on, not just a score. Learning continues between rounds. Fathom uses a four-box Leitner system for spaced repetition. Questions you struggle with come back sooner, and the ones you know come back after longer intervals, across days and weeks.
- Go beyond the answer. After you answer, Learn more shows a photograph and a few lines about the place: what it is, why it matters, and a fact or two. Where the place has them, these include its height, when it was built, or the year it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Every quiz has Learn more: all 6,767 questions have a photo and a few sentences about the place, 4,329 different places in all.
- A dive to the bottom of the ocean. The dive shows how deep your knowledge goes. Every step a question climbs in spaced repetition takes the stone closer to the Challenger Deep. After a round in which you make progress, the stone sinks through the ocean's real zones, past the sea life that lives there and finds that earn badges. Forgetting never pulls it back up.
- Explore a living globe, your way. Answer the way you like: find places on the globe, pick from multiple choices, type the name, estimate where something is, or compare two countries by population or area. Choose easy, medium or hard. Spin a detailed Earth with mountains, coastlines and slowly drifting clouds.
- Progress without pressure. Every continent, World quiz and country you play has a badge: a hand-drawn stone that fills with metal as your mastery grows. Bronze means 50% mastery, silver 80% and gold 100%. After each round you see which badges have moved up.
- Free, wherever you are. All quizzes and all learning and progress features are free. The website has no ads. Fathom runs in modern browsers on Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, iPhone, iPad and Android. You can install it from your browser and play offline.
Screenshots
Click Download to save the full-size file. Desktop screenshots are 3456 × 2233 px, phone screenshots 644 × 1393 px. The about page has them in every language.
Desktop
Phone
The name and the stone
To fathom something is to understand it all the way down. A fathom is also an old sailors' measure of depth, about 1.8 metres (6 feet), used to sound how deep the sea is.
Both are about depth, and so is Fathom: getting below the surface of the map until you truly know the world. Layer by layer, one round at a time.
That's why the logo is a stone with layers in it. A stone is shaped slowly, over a long time, and carries that time in its layers, the way knowledge and experience build up. It can read as a cross-section of the earth, a fingerprint, or a small planet seen from afar, and it is deliberately not a map or a globe, so it can hold more than geography. The lines are drawn by hand, like an old geological illustration.
The stone runs through the whole game: every badge you earn is the same stone with a motif cut into it, and it fills from the bottom, layer by layer, as you learn. After a round, the same stone is the weight on the line that sinks towards the bottom of the ocean as your knowledge grows.
Brand assets
Logo mark (stone)
Wordmark (stone + name)
Lockup (name with stone as "o")
App icon
Colour palette
Typography
Headings and the logo name use Sora, body text uses Nunito. Both are open source.
Writing the name
The logo writes the name fathom (lowercase). In text, call it Fathom Geography, which tells it apart from the board game, the analytics tool and other products called Fathom. After the first mention, plain "Fathom" is fine.
Contact
Feel free to get in touch with questions, interview requests, or if you need more assets or information.