Take Me To Your Leaders

Play World Leaders

Who are these guys? And yes, they are mostly guys, unfortunately. Still, this is a screenshot from an excellent game on one of my new favorite web sites, Purpose Games. One very cool thing about this site is that users can easily create their own interactive games because of the clever use of these blue dots.

Play Coffee Cherry or
Advanced Coffee Cherry
at PurposeGames

I made a game about the parts of the coffee fruit in just a few minutes, and made a more advanced version the next day. The site is full of useful geography quizzes for learners at any level, and interested in learning geography at any scale, from small regions to the entire world.

Among the games I have found most intriguing is the world leaders game, posted by a user named Doffa in 2007, and played more than 11,000 times so far. Some of these leaders have already left office, but it is still worthwhile knowing something about them. For each leader, I have provided a link to a Wikipedia article, something I usually avoid on this blog but a way to avoid making a life's work of this post. It is a reasonable starting point for readers who -- like me -- do not know much about some of these figures. I have used the names as presented in the online puzzle; Wikipedia provides more complete full names for some individuals.

Hugo Chávez  -- Venezuela

Stephen Harper -- Canada
Angela Merkel -- Germany

George W Bush -- United States

Tony Blair -- United Kingdom

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan -- Turkey

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero -- Spain

Lech Kaczyński -- Poland

Romano Prodi -- Italy 

Pervez Musharraf -- Pakistan

Abdullahbin Abdulaziz -- Saudi Arabia

Thabo Mbeki -- South Africa

ManmohanSingh -- India

MohamedHosni Mubarak -- Egypt

Hu Jintao -- China

Néstor Kirchner  -- Argentina

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- Iran

VladimirPutin -- Russia

John Howard -- Australia

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva -- Brazil

Hamid Karzai -- Afghanistan

Jaques Chirac -- France

Shinzō Abe -- Japan

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono -- Indonesia

Viktor Yushchenko -- Ukraine

Stephen Harper -- Canada

Ehud Olmert -- Israel

Felipe Calderón -- Mexico

Oluṣẹgun Ọbasanjọ -- Nigeria

Once you have mastered these leaders, you might want to try a somewhat more ambitious variation from user fabianruiz. Produced in 2009, it is slightly more current than the puzzle shown above and it includes many more female heads of state. A clever innovation is the incorporation of vexillology. The proper response to the name of a country is the photo of its leader; the proper response to the name of a leader is the flag of his or her country. Study the screenshot below and try it at 24 World Leaders. I am looking for a volunteer guest blogger to provide a study sheet for this one.

Play 24 World Leaders