ALL US Counties: How I Achieved a World Record

This map is overwhelming to say the least. When faced with any complex task, break it into smaller chunks.

In order to type in all the counties of the United States in a timeframe of 90 minutes, we must know where all of these counties are located first. Afterall, we do have a reference right in front of us. Even though Sporcle is our rival, I recommend you use Sporcle quizzes just for the clicking quizzes. A user by the name of "captainchomp" has a playlist of all the counties for each individual state called "US Counties Picture Click Playlist." Keep in mind this playlist is in alphabetical order, but you should do the states from the least to greatest amount of counties. *see link below for list*

https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/states-with-the-most-counties/

Here are some general strategies for learning all of the counties (keep in mind this process alone took me several hours a day for 2 months)

- Use mnemonic devices (come up with creative stories or connections for the county names, pay attention to the relationship between the shape and name, etc.)

- Once you get 100% on a state, achieve 100% 3 times in a row before moving on to the next one

**NOTE** I did not do this when training at first but I highly recommend it to speed up this process. I have a playlist on my profile called "Counties by State." This involves actually typing in the names of the counties for each individual state to help you train for the whole United States. After completing the clicking quiz on Sporcle, immediately go to that respective state's typing quiz. This will ensure that the knowledge sticks with your brain longer.

So what? They're just... oh. They're all squares with seemingly no pattern. But, remember what we said in the beginning of this blog. "When faced with any complex task, break it into smaller chunks." For states like this and many others, we can break this down into whatever is easiest for your brain.

I approached it by drawing smaller "squares" in my head and making up whatever mnemonics within those.

When we create patterns like the squares above though, the task becomes way easier for us to absorb and soon enough within a couple hours we're approaching 100%. Just keep trying again and again and the percentage will creep up by a little bit thru each attempt.

Now, we are ready to move on to the final stretch. This is where things start to get a bit messy...

You may have noticed that some of the states with 100+ counties are labeled with numbers. This is because the area of the counties are too small to have names fit inside of them that are easily legible. So... how do we tackle this?

So you've learned all 50 states, congrats! After absorbing this information it's pretty much impossible to keep 3,143 units of information in your head right? WRONG. Here's the strategy to chunk it all out.

For your convenience, I compiled a 5-day rotation (which I still use to this day) of reviewing each state and it's counties. For each day, you will take the time to review every state's clicking AND typing quizzes. If you are fluent, this should be about 45 minutes a day of a routine that you can add to your grind. Each day is evenly sorted into states with small, medium, and large amounts of counties.

Day 1: Texas, Tennessee, Nebraska, Alabama, Florida, North Dakota, South Carolina, New Jersey, Nevada, Delaware
Day 2: Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Idaho, Wyoming, Maine, Rhode Island
Day 3: Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Arkansas, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Maryland, Arizona, Hawaii
Day 4: Kentucky, Illinois, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Colorado, California, Oregon, Utah, Massachusetts, Connecticut
Day 5: Missouri, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Louisiana, New York, New Mexico, Alaska, Vermont, New Hampshire

Now... we approach the big quiz.

After months of preparation, we are finally able to begin the 2nd half of our journey which is attempting to get 100% on one of the hardest quizzes in all of JetPunk.

Well don't just sit there, start typing! But seriously, get to it because we only have 90 minutes. But how would you accomplish this feat? Surely you can't type in 3,143 names in that amount of time. *hint: it's actually not 3,143 inputs* As many of you noticed, typing in any county that is repeated in multiple states will fill in every single state with the county name, i.e. Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, etc.

Mathing it out, the amount of uniquely inputted names you need to type in is 1,849. Along with this, I posted a blog a couple weeks ago when I had the world record and listed these fun facts.

- Out of all 3,143 counties, there are 1,849 unique inputs for JetPunk.

- Of those 1,849 counties, 434 inputs are duplicates i.e. Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, etc.

- Those 434 inputs alone make up 1,728/3,143 counties.

- There are 1,415 uniquely named counties.

When you attempt this quiz after learning where all the counties are, to no surprise it will actually come very easily to you. After typing in everything you know and going thru each state (as you first learned it) you will get roughly 95-98% of the total counties. The counties you forget are the ones you haven't created strong mnemonic devices/connections for. Trust me, and I'm speaking from experience here, once you attempt this for the first time and you forget that ONE county and it's just sitting there staring at you menacingly, you will never forget it again. (it was Bennett, South Dakota for me)

Chaining is a strategy that many people use to type a series of counties with similar names to each other. For example: Brook, Brooks, Brookings.

These are all county names in 3 different states, but it doesn't matter. Your hands are at the same place on the keyboard so you might as well type them all at once because it's faster! Plus, you're unable to type Brookings without typing in brooks first. (try it)

Here's a list of my favorite chains that you can try for yourself!

Wills - Will, Wilson, Williams, Williamson, Williamsburg, Willacy, Wilbarger

Greens - Green, Greenup, Greenlee, Greenwood, Greenville, Greensville

Royalty - King, Kings, Queens, King And Queen, King William, King George, Prince William, Prince George, Prince Edward

Wood - Wood, Woods, Woodson, Woodruff, Woodson, Woodbury, Woodward

There are SO many more chains that you can discover for yourself. The path to success is moments away!

Another strategy I use is zooming in on a certain set of states so 1. it's easier to see and 2. so I don't get distracted or overwhelmed and start typing in other random counties. This also helps to see if you've 100% completed a state before moving on to the next one.

The best strategy I have to offer to complete this grueling task involves being away from the keyboard. Mental preparation is just as important as the actual quiz itself. Get all assignments/work done ahead of time, eat a healthy and balanced diet, get a good night's sleep, cater your surroundings to your needs, etc. All these things combined will help tremendously with your counties journey!

As some of you may know, my World Record has been broken... by a lot. "threadjp" has an official time of 33:06. That is 9 minutes and 15 seconds faster than my former wr time of 42:21! Huge kudos to them. Under their YouTube video shows a description of their strategy after I asked about it. They might create a blog in the future as well explaining their process.

For now, I am keeping up with my 5 day rotation as I achieved the world record without really knowing the locations of all these counties. After I learned all 50 states, I completely stopped with review and just did wr attempts every day for about 2 months, slowly lowering my time until I finally accomplished it. (I do not recommend this at all lol)

For now, life is getting very busy and I am unable to do much other than county review as a part of my daily routine. I believe with setting aside time just for raw typing skills and going over my 5 day rotation, I will one day be able to beat this record and reclaiming it as my own. I am taking a hiatus from any serious runs until October.

All of the information I have posted above is specific enough to gain some insight but is still rather broad. If any of you want me to post more blogs on more detailed strategies, walkthroughs, demonstrations, I would be more than happy to share. Just reach out to me at any point thru this blog.

Thank you for all that you do, JetPunk community. You all are an inspiration!