How to play
Find the when. Find the where.
WhenWhere is a five-round history and geography game. Each photo asks for two answers: the year it was taken and the place it shows.
One round, three simple steps
Study the photograph
Look for clues in signs, buildings, clothing, vehicles and the landscape. Select View photo to enlarge it. Zoom in, then scroll or use the arrow keys inside the viewer to inspect a detail.
Choose a year and a location
Move the timeline, type a whole year from 1900 to 2025, or use the plus and minus buttons. Click or tap the map to place your pin. You can drag the pin and pan or zoom the map until you are happy with its position.
Lock in your guess
Submit when both answers are ready. WhenWhere reveals the actual year and location, explains the photograph, and links to its archive record. Select Next photo to continue. After five rounds, you can copy your score or start again.
How the score works
A round is worth up to 10,000 points: 5,000 for time and 5,000 for place. The maximum across five rounds is 50,000. Your two guesses are scored independently, so a strong year guess can still help when the location is difficult.
Year points
The exact year earns 5,000 points. Points decrease as the gap between your guess and the correct year grows.
| Years away | Points |
|---|---|
| Exact year | 5,000 |
| 1 | 4,730 |
| 5 | 3,787 |
| 10 | 2,869 |
| 25 | 1,247 |
Location points
A pin within 25 km earns 5,000 points. Beyond that, points decrease with distance. Some records identify the landmark rather than the exact camera position.
| Distance away | Points |
|---|---|
| Within 25 km | 5,000 |
| 100 km | 4,756 |
| 500 km | 3,643 |
| 1,000 km | 2,610 |
| 5,000 km | 181 |
Choose your kind of journey
- Random game
- Five different photos drawn from the starter archive. There is no timer, so you can take your time looking for clues.
- Daily challenge
- The same five photos, in the same order, for everyone on a given UTC date. The daily selection resets at midnight UTC. You have one saved attempt per day. Finish before midnight UTC to earn a daily streak and leaderboard score; unfinished games can still be completed as practice. Photos can appear again on other days.
- Explore eras
- Choose a period from the collections page. Each collection shows its date range and photo count. Some collections overlap because photographs can belong to more than one part of the archive.
Keyboard and phone controls
Use Tab to move between controls and Enter or Space to activate buttons. Focus the year slider and use arrow keys for one-year changes, or Home and End for the range limits. On the map, use arrow keys to pan and the zoom buttons to change scale, then choose Place pin at center.
On a phone, the photo, map and year controls stack vertically. Scroll down to place your guess, and use the larger photo viewer when a clue is hard to see. Each answer reveal scrolls into view automatically.
What happens to my progress?
Sign in to WhenWhere to save your locked guesses and completed games. Open My journey to resume a game, review results, see personal bests and track daily streaks. An unsubmitted year or map pin is not saved. You can choose whether your player name and daily score appear on the daily leaderboard; your email stays private.
After finishing a game, choose Challenge a friend to create a link containing the same five photos. Friends sign in and get one attempt; everyone with the link can compare player names and scores. Challenge hosting is included with Plus and is open during early access.
Want a better starting strategy? Read our guide to recognizing clues in historical photographs.
Your next clue is waiting.
Five photographs. A world to figure out.