Without referring to maps, atlases, websites or other aids, and using just your memory of where places are, see if you can give a word description, if need be by referring to other places more likely to be known to others, of these fairly well known (at least by name) places: (add to the list as you think of ones likely to stump others)
Malta
The Crimea
Timbuktu
The Halls of Montezuma
The Shores of Tripoli
Tasmania
Verrazano Narrows
Fire Island
Mandalay
Glocca Morra
Botany Bay
Cape Fear
Key Largo
The Slough of Despond
The Dismal Swamp
The Straits of Magellan
The Galapagos Islands
Describe where these places are. Don’t look them up in outside sources, but go from memory. Use other well-known places (like continents, capitals, rivers, oceans) as a reference point for where the place is near or what direction it is from there.
Examples:
Tigris River – one of the rivers Mesopotamia is named for, runs through Iraq, near the Euphrates
Chicago – biggest city in Illinois, bottom left hand corner of Lake Michigan
Suez Canal – manmade waterway connecting Mediterranean with Red Sea, built to shorten the route to the Far East from Europe so as to avoid having to go around Africa
Malta - Mediterranean island south of Italy
The Crimea - Peninsula off the Ukraine
Timbuktu - City in central Africa
The Halls of Montezuma - Reference to Mexico City from Marine Corps Anthem
The Shores of Tripoli - Another anthem reference. Coast of North Africa.
Tasmania - Island souteast of Australia
Verrazano Narrows - River crossing in New York City
Fire Island - Resort location near NYC
Mandalay - City in Burma?
Glocca Morra - Don’t know this one
Botany Bay - Landing area in Eastern Australia
Cape Fear - Landmark in the American South. South Carolina?
Key Largo - Island in the Florida Keys
The Slough of Despond - Metaphorical location from the Pilgrim’s Progress?
The Dismal Swamp - Familiar but I can’t place it
The Straits of Magellan - Maritime passage at southern end of South America
The Galapagos Islands - Islands off the west coast of South America
Folsom Prison
London Bridge
Bay of Biscay
Victoria Falls
Niagra Falls
Silicon Valley
The valley referred to in the term “Valley Girls”
Pike’s Peak
Mt. Rushmore
Geographic center of N. America
Geographic center of US
Transylvania
Actually, it’s Rugby – been there, seen the monument, didn’t buy a T-shirt (don’t even remember if any souvenir garments were available).
For the forty-eight contiguous states, it’s in the vicinity of the Kansas town of Lebanon, a plot point in the cinematic classic The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. Whenf Alaska and Hawaii are added, the center is somewhere in South Dakota, as I recall.
From the first group: Timbuktu is in the country of Mali. The Galapagos Islands belong to Ecuador. Cape Fear is, I believe, in North Carolina.
The Sargasso Sea is in the North Atlantic, although I’m hazy on just where. Roughly between Bermuda and the Azores, I think.
Kergulen is an island – in the Pacific, but beyond that I’m clueless.
Ulaan Bataar (formerly Ulan Bator) is the capital of Mongolia, that purple country surrounded by yellow China and the orange Soviet Union on my 1960’s-vintage globe (yes, I know the colors from memory).
The Ural Mountains are in Russia, run north-south, and are the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia.
The Pillars of Hercules are the promontories on the north (Gibraltar – Iberian Peninsula) and south (Morocco) sides of the Straits of Gibraltar. The straits link the Mediterranean with the open Atlantic.