Looking for great geography games!

December 10, 2012 6:38 PM

Wanted: Great geography games for a kid.

My daughter is eight and loves geography - she likes knowing where states and countries are, capitals, and is interested in the characteristics of those places - weather, topography, landforms, etc. What are some good games or activities (like a really cool coloring book or something) out there? Not interested in technology this time around - I want something that can be wrapped and put under the tree.

posted by kirst27 to shopping (13 answers total)

How's about Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, the boardgame?
posted by silvergoat at 6:48 PM on December 10, 2012

For a boardgame, there's Ticket to Ride and its various expansion packs.
posted by mayurasana at 6:57 PM on December 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

The "10 days" series are board games about travel across continents, though they may not have the geography details you want, they are about managing transportation across continents.

e.g Ten Days in Africa
posted by chapps at 6:57 PM on December 10, 2012

If you don't have this shower curtain, it's nice when you... er... forget your cellphone in the bathroom. I'm not sure if it's a great under-the-tree gift, but a great surprise if it just appears in the bathroom one day.
posted by bessel functions seem unnecessarily complicated at 7:02 PM on December 10, 2012

Scrambled States of America is more fun than it should be. You frantically try to match states based on similar populations, regions, and other things.

Map It! is also a lot of fun. You try to build a kind of relative map on the table, starting with a random city in the center, then taking turns placing drawn cities around it.
posted by Garm at 7:15 PM on December 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Maybe a subscription to National Geographic Kids? Pair it with with something like a 3-D globe puzzle that you can assemble together.
posted by troika at 8:01 PM on December 10, 2012

Not a game, but I bet Rick Steves' travel programs would be great for a budding geographer.
posted by surfgator at 9:07 PM on December 10, 2012

Not sure if Sequence States & Capitols is good, but I sure like Sequence for Kids.
posted by Dansaman at 9:50 PM on December 10, 2012

There used to be a Carmen Santiago computer game my after-school students loved. Their teachers told me they were the most geographically informed students in their classes. Not sure what OS you have but you can usually find legacy software on the web. PM me if you'd like a location.
posted by R2WeTwo at 11:48 PM on December 10, 2012

I always enjoyed The Great Game of Britain. The cards (at least in my day) used to have little blurbs about the cities and towns on them.
posted by sueinnyc at 7:23 AM on December 11, 2012

Seconding Ticket to Ride—my eight-year-old grandson loves it and can draw a map of the US that accurately displays a bunch of cities (including Duluth) without looking anything up. He also knows more about the geography of Scandinavia (thanks to this edition) than I ever will.
posted by languagehat at 7:35 AM on December 11, 2012

For a seriously hard game, try Ubi. It's a trivia game where you have to figure out what they are talking about and then find out where on the map that person/event belongs. Best played with teams so you can pool knowledge and discuss the answers.

"Ubi" is the Latin word for "where".
posted by CathyG at 9:55 AM on December 11, 2012

Wow, great suggestions everyone, thanks so much. I am going to look into each of these.
posted by kirst27 at 5:22 PM on December 11, 2012