Country Logic Puzzle by Scambigol #10

You shouldn't type an answer if you are not 100% sure it goes there, no guessing!!

Read carefully all instructions!

- 1. Each cell contains a country: they all have different inital letters.
- 2. The arrows indicate alphabetical order for the corresponding row/column.
- 3. For each of the 6 continents there is a column containing 4 of its countries; the only exception is Indonesia appearing in the Oceania column.
- 4. In North America and Oceania columns there is a pair of bordering countries; in the other 4 columns all 4 countries are connected via land borders

example of rule 4: Argentina-Brazil-Suriname-Uruguay would be valid, Argentina-Guyana-Suriname-Uruguay wouldn't because you cannot go from Uruguay to Guyana moving across those 4 countries

For a harder version change the last two hints as follows:

- 3H. For each of the 6 continents there is a column where all countries belong to that continent or border that continent
- 4H. In 4 of the columns all 4 countries are connected via land borders, in the other 2 columns there is a pair of bordering country
Please don't cheat by guess and check!
When you guess an answer, countries with the same initial will be greyed out on the map
Previous quiz in series: #9
Quiz by
scambigol
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Last updated: September 5, 2025
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First submittedOctober 3, 2017
Times taken667
Average score79.2%
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A
B
C
D
E
F
1
Argentina
Denmark
Honduras
Indonesia
Oman
Rwanda
2
Brazil
France
Jamaica
Kiribati
Qatar
Tanzania
3
Colombia
Germany
Mexico
Papua
New Guinea
Saudi Arabia
Uganda
4
Ecuador
Luxembourg
Nicaragua
Vanuatu
Yemen
Zambia
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10 Comments
+1
Level 80
Sep 5, 2025
--- SPOILER BELOW!! ---

I've tried writing a walkthrough for the hard version of the quiz. Please help me if it needs clarifying/fixing/improvement, this is the solution I found but it's very likely there's room for improvement!!

---

1) Oman-Qatar-Yemen are in the Asi column (unique countries for those initial letters)

2) Indonesia-Papua New Guinea are in the Oceania column (only possible bordering pair in the Oceania column)

3) Z goes in F4, so col F is Afr

4) Y goes in E4, so col E is Asi

5) V goes in D4

6) Try with no Saudi Arabia:

a) Oce & Asi are the two 'unconnected' columns

b) NAm is connected so Asia is JOQS (Jamaica can't be connected and the other J countries are in Asia)

c) D? no Afr (D can't go in last column), no NAm (unconnected) so D Denmark, must have G Germany

d) V? no Vat (no Italy so unconnected), no Venezuela (4th column can't have ABC, G is taken so V can't get connected), so V Vanuatu

e) P can only be to the left of Q

+1
Level 80
Sep 5, 2025
f) SAm: no G, P, U, V so need a B for a connected path

g) no A in SAm would require C in SAm, that would mean C is cell 'B2' but that leaves no initial letter for cell 'A2', so in SAm

h) NAm: no B, G, P so only option is CEHN, that means SAm is ABFS but S>N

Hence Saudi Arabia is in the quiz

7) Asi: OQSY

8) J is Jamaica so Oce NAm are the unconnected continents

9) V? no Vatican (no Italy) no Venezuela (no S, V is in 4th column so no ABC so unconnected) so V is Vanuatu

10) Afr: RTUZ are the only possible initials that have African countries, only connected path is Rwanda Tanzania Uganda Zambia

11) SAm: no PSUV so need B; can't have C without A (otherwise no initial to the left of C) so must have A and B, so Argentina and Brazil (with Bolivia you can't make a connected path)

12) L? Latvia and Lithuania unconnected (no BPR), Liechtenstein unconnected (no AS) so L is Luxembourg

+1
Level 80
Sep 5, 2025
13) L connected so must have at least one of France and Germany, so SAm can't be ABFG, this means C in SAm, D in B1

14) From Luxembourg you can only reach DFGMN so H in NAm, K Kiribati, so Oceania IKPV, N to the left of V

15) 2nd row Eur country before K so F or G; if no F only option is DGLN but D and N are in different columns, so F in Europe

16) if no G in Eur then Eur is FLMN but L>K so G in Eur, Ecuador in SAm, Colombia in SAm

17) FG can't be in column 3 otheriwse no initial to the left of G, so Europe DFGL

18) NAm is HJMN, only border possibility is Honduras-Nicaragua

+1
Level 94
Oct 3, 2017
Brilliant as usual.
+1
Level 76
Jul 28, 2020
Wonderful as usual!

Column 2 and 3 couldn't be replaced by:

dominican republic - grenada - haiti - jamaica

france - luxembourg - monaco - netherlands ??

+1
Level 80
Aug 3, 2020
luxembourg is after kiribati in alphabetical order
+1
Level 48
Mar 12, 2024
How do you even get the first one?
+1
Level 61
May 10, 2024
In the last box, because of the alphabetical order, you need to have a country that begins with z. There are only two countries that satisfy this condition and they both are in Africa.

And still because of the alphabetical order, you need to put a country that begins with y in a box that is adjacent (vertically or horizontally) to the last one.

But in each column, you need to have a different continent.

So the only country that begins with y, which is an Asian country, needs to be in the box in the last row next to the box near the country that begins with z.

+1
Level 62
Aug 27, 2025
Thanks for putting these together.

Mind-boggling stuff.

Can I clarify rule D: does it simply mean "every country must border at least one other in that column"? Or something else?

+1
Level 80
Sep 5, 2025
no because the 4 countries must be 'connected to each other'. so argentina-bolivia-suriname-venezuela wouldn't be valid because the two pairs of bordering countries are 'separate'