I thought it would be fun to memorize all the world’s countries! It seemed like such a daunting task, that the first step I took was to see if anyone else had already done the work for me. With the world capitals, I was only able to find paid content. Not wanting to pay, I decided to tackle the task on my own.
I began by trying to find an accurate list of the countries and capitals which, as it turns out, is not an easy task. Countries are forever changing and merging and separating, and some countries like to call themselves countries, but really aren’t recognized as such by one or more other countries. I finally decided on a list of 196 countries recognized by the United Nations as sovereign states…the US has a different number…but anyway.
I then created mnemonics for, and memorized, the first 8 or so countries. Later that day, when I wanted to practice them when I didn’t have the list in front of me (in the car), I couldn’t recall all the countries that I had learned, so I could not practice effectively. I changed tack at this time and decided to place the countries in a memory palace of 100 locations, with two countries in each location. I had been working on just such a memory palace for another purpose, but 100 locations is a lot, so I decided to use it for the countries.
Since I had intended originally to use the memory palace as a repository of historical facts, I had made ten different “palaces” in places that reminded me of a particular decade. For instance, the 60s are at the Brady Bunch house. In the table below are the locations (each containing 10 locations around/inside), my reasoning behind them, and a brief description of the transitions I use to easily get from one palace to the next. I don’t imagine someone else would have use of these exact locations, but the concept is a good one, I feel, and could be adapted.
| Decade | Location | Rationale | Transition |
| 00s | Apartment Building, South Bend, IN | Lived here during some of these years | Returned from SB, kids started at school |
| 10s | St. Michael School, Findlay | We moved back to Findlay and, with five kids, I spent a good amount of time here during these years | Dwayne “the rock” (Republic of Congo) Johnson leaves school, goes to zoo |
| 20s | Toledo Zoo | The roaring 20s were zoo-like, as the current 20s seem to be starting, as well | On the carousel, flung off back to the 1930s |
| 30s | Grandparents’ farmhouse | Going for a depression-era vibe, a la the 1930s | Take my bagpipes (Baghdad)to perform at performing arts center |
| 40s | Marathon Performing Arts Center | I spent a lot of time here in my (early) 40s as my kids were in a lot of theater shows | My lithe Uncle Wayne (Lithuania) is a villain (Vilnius) and is going to go rob the ice cream shop |
| 50s | Dietsch’s Ice Cream Shop | Definitely a 50s soda shop feel | My aunt Martha going to visit the Brady Bunch house |
| 60s | Brady Bunch house | Show made in the 60s | A large pole (Poland) falls on a portly gal (Portugal) walking in front of my childhood home |
| 70s | Childhood home | Lived here as a child in the 70s | A creepy, solemn man (Soloman Islands) follows me to my high school |
| 80s | Findlay High School | I attended in the 80s | A turkey (turkey) drives a car to see the turkey men (Turkmenistan) on Frazier St. |
| 90s | 304 Frazer St. | Lived here during college | Done! |
After I established the palace, it was just a matter of plugging in the countries and capitals. Because there are two countries per location, oftentimes the mnemonics are interacting between the two countries. For that reason, the countries will forever be in alphabetical pairs in my mind.
In hindsight, I really wish I would have ordered them in some order more useful and informing than alphabetical order, such as population, but it’s too late for that. I will say that when these were new to me, if I would draw a blank on the next country, I could quickly figure it out since they are in ABC order. But even this is only useful if I’m forced to recite the countries in alphabetical order, instead of doing what the real purpose of this exercise is, which is to recall the capital.
Overall, I enjoyed learning the capitals in this way and want to share my methods. I plan on a youtube video in the future, but for now, I have begun making these fun graphic aids:
To remember that the capital of BAHRAIN is MANAMA, picture a sheep saying BAH with RAIN MAN riding him. The capital of BANGLADESH is DHAKA. The starting gun goes BANG, and the DACHshunds start their race.
You can see these on my site here and on my twitter memorization account, @MemorizingIsFun I don’t know that I will ever make these for all 196 countries, but there are at least 20 of them on there for now. I’ve also included my original, although probably a bit cryptic, and maybe even outdated, spreadsheet for anyone that might find it useful. It is available for download below.
