UK Counties Hangman 🗺️

Guess the county before the mango drops. UK Counties takes in all four nations — from Kent and Cornwall to Fife, Powys and Fermanagh — in a free, child-friendly hangman alternative you can play instantly in your browser. No gallows, no downloads, no logins: pick a difficulty and see how well you know the map, and how well you can spell it.

Every county the game can pick is on the UK Counties word list, sorted by difficulty.

Counties for every level

UK Counties has three difficulty levels, so it works for primary pupils and pub-quiz geographers alike:

• Easy — short, famous names: Kent, Devon, Essex, Yorkshire, plus Fife, Powys, Antrim and Tyrone.
• Medium — the familiar -shire counties, the old counties of the north such as Cumberland and Westmorland, and the islands: Anglesey, Shetland, the Isle of Wight.
• Hard — the long ones, with the letters nobody says out loud: Leicestershire, Gloucestershire, Kirkcudbrightshire, Clackmannanshire.

The list mixes historic and present-day counties, so Cumberland and Cumbria are both here. Northern Ireland's six counties are represented by Antrim, Tyrone, Armagh and Fermanagh.

How to guess county names

Test -shire early. Twenty-nine of the sixty answers end in S-H-I-R-E, including eighteen of the twenty Hard ones. On a long word, guess S, H, I, R and E and the last five blanks usually fill themselves.

E and R are the best letters. They are the two most common letters in the list, ahead of S, I and H — all thanks to -shire.

Don't spell it the way it sounds. Leicestershire is said "LESS-ter-sher" and Gloucestershire "GLOSS-ter-sher": the letters you don't hear are still there to guess.

Think compass points. Essex, Sussex and Middlesex were the lands of the East, South and Middle Saxons; Norfolk and Suffolk were the north folk and south folk. If you see -SEX or -FOLK, the start is usually a compass point.

Tricky county spellings to watch

• Worcestershire — the one everyone knows from the sauce bottle, said "WUSS-ter-sher". The C, E and S in the middle are silent: Wor(ces)tershire.
• Leicestershire — sounds like "Lester-shire": the I, C and E after "Le" are silent — Le(ice)stershire.
• Gloucestershire — sounds like "Gloster-shire", with U, C and E silent in the same way: Glo(uce)stershire.
• Kirkcudbrightshire — said "kir-COO-bree-shire". At 18 letters, the longest answer in the category.
• Clackmannanshire — Scotland's smallest historic county has one of its longest names: double N, then a single N.
• Northamptonshire — the P between M and T is easy to forget.
• Gwynedd — Welsh spelling, said "GWIN-eth": the Y sounds like an I, and the double D is a "th".

The stories behind the names

• Shire comes from the Old English scīr, a district under one official — the shire reeve, which is where the word sheriff comes from.
• Norfolk and Suffolk are simply "north folk" and "south folk", the two halves of the kingdom of East Anglia.
• Rutland is England's smallest historic county, and its Latin motto says so: Multum in parvo, "much in little".
• Yorkshire is the largest historic county in England, so big it was traditionally split into three "ridings" — from an Old Norse word for a third.
• Anglesey is thought to come from Old Norse for "Ongull's island". In Welsh it is Ynys Môn.

UK Counties Hangman for the classroom

England's national curriculum asks Key Stage 2 pupils to name and locate counties and cities of the United Kingdom, and this category makes that list something to play rather than copy out. There's no hanging imagery, so it's suitable for every classroom: wrong guesses simply make a mango drop, and there are no ads during play. Teachers can also use Set a word or a spelling list to load their own county — the one the school is in is a good place to start.

Questions

Is UK Counties Hangman free?
Yes — completely free, with no account, no download and no ads during gameplay.

Is every UK county included?
Not every one — there are 60 across the three levels, from all four nations, with the best-known counties and the best spelling challenges first.

What ages is this suitable for?
All ages. Easy words work for young children, while the Hard spellings will challenge adults too.

Can I play on a phone or tablet?
Yes. It works in any browser on any device, with nothing to install.

Play more: UK Counties · UK Counties word list · US States · Cities · Countries · For Teachers