Cantondle: how the game works
Cantondle is a daily geography puzzle about Swiss cantons and districts, drawn like an old school atlas. This page explains every column, every hint and where the numbers come from.
What it is
Every day there is one canton to find among the 26. You type a name or click the map, and each guess comes back with a row of clues. Guesses are unlimited; what counts is how many you needed. Puzzle No. 1 was on 14 October 2026. A new one starts at midnight Zurich time, and everyone gets the same answer.
The three levels
- Normal: one of the 26 cantons. Clues: language, region, population, area, year joined, neighbouring countries, plus the map.
- Hard: one of 144 districts: the 135 statistical districts of the Federal Statistical Office plus the nine cantons that have none (Uri, Obwalden, Nidwalden, Glarus, Zug, Basel-Stadt, Appenzell Innerrhoden, Neuchâtel, Geneva), each counted as one area. Clues: canton, language region, population, area, municipalities, neighbouring countries, plus the district map.
- Impossible: also one of the 144 districts, but you start with only its outline, north up, with a scale bar and no position. Clues: population, area, municipalities, neighbouring countries, plus the map.
Each level has its own answer, and the three answers of a day always lie in three different cantons.
The clues, column by column
Green is correct, striped muted orange is close, no colour is wrong. On number columns ↑ means the answer's value is higher, ↓ lower. "Within 25 percent" is measured from the answer's value.
- Language (Normal): the official languages. Green for the same set (order does not matter, so Bern, Fribourg and Valais are green for each other), orange if one is shared.
- Language region (Hard): the BFS language regions of the district's municipalities, same rule. 137 of the 144 districts show only one; See / Lac shows German and French, Maloja three.
- Region (Normal): one of the seven BFS major regions. Green or grey only.
- Canton (Hard): green for the same canton, orange if your district's canton borders the answer's.
- Population: permanent residents, orange within 25 percent.
- Area: compared in whole km², as the tile shows it. Orange within 25 percent.
- Joined (Normal): the year the canton joined the Confederation, orange within 50 years. Obwalden and Nidwalden count from 1291 as Unterwalden, the two Basels from 1501, the two Appenzells from 1513.
- Municipalities (Hard, Impossible): orange within 25 percent or within 2, whichever is larger.
- Borders: the foreign countries touched. "None" is a value too, so None against None is green. Orange if one country matches.
- Map: your guess turns green if it is the answer, orange if it shares a border with it, grey otherwise. There is no distance or direction column on purpose.
Normal, the answer is Graubünden:
| Guess | Language | Region | Population | Area | Joined | Borders | Map |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bern | DE · FR | Espace Mittelland | 1,069,074 ↓ | 5,939 km² ↑ | 1353 ↑ | None | grey |
| Ticino | IT | Ticino | 359,783 ↓ | 2,812 km² ↑ | 1803 | Italy | orange |
| Graubünden | DE · RM · IT | Eastern Switzerland | 207,400 | 7,105 km² | 1803 | Austria, Italy, Liechtenstein | green |
Bern's area is orange because 5,939 km² is within a quarter of 7,105 km². Ticino gets the year right and turns orange on the map because it borders Graubünden.
Hard, the answer is Entlebuch (Lucerne):
| Guess | Canton | Language | Population | Area | Municipalities | Borders | Map |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Interlaken-Oberhasli | BE | DE | 49,166 ↓ | 1,229 km² ↓ | 28 ↓ | None | orange |
| Canton of Obwalden | OW | DE | 39,879 ↓ | 491 km² ↓ | 7 ↑ | None | orange |
| Willisau | LU | DE | 58,387 ↓ | 337 km² ↑ | 21 ↓ | None | orange |
| Entlebuch | LU | DE | 24,554 | 425 km² | 9 | None | green |
All three wrong guesses border Entlebuch. That is how you corner a district: once the map shows a ring of orange, the answer is in the middle.
Hints
Two hints per level: the first after 4 guesses, the second after 7. Opening them is up to you.
- Normal: the highest point with its height, then the number of neighbouring cantons and the first by abbreviation ("Borders 4 cantons, including GL").
- Hard: the first letter as the list shows it ("Canton of O…" for canton-wide areas), then the largest municipality. If the district is named after it, the hint says so and gives its population instead.
- Impossible: the language region, then the canton (or "a canton without districts" and how many cantons it borders).
How to play well
- Play the levels in order. Once Normal is solved, that canton is out for Hard; after Hard, both cantons are out for Impossible.
- Read yesterday's answer on the page. A canton is never repeated within 9 days, and yesterday's Hard district is never today's Impossible one.
- Choose a good opener. If you read every tile perfectly, Basel-Landschaft or Glarus as a first guess leaves about 1.2 cantons on average; Vaud leaves 4.6, Ticino 4.1.
- Use Borders. Eleven cantons touch no foreign country: Bern, Lucerne, Fribourg, Schwyz, Zug, both Appenzells, Nidwalden, Obwalden, Glarus and Uri. A green "None" leaves only those.
- Region is all or nothing. Eastern Switzerland has seven cantons, Central Switzerland six. Zurich and Ticino are regions of their own, so a green "Zurich" is the answer.
- Know the years. Six cantons joined in 1803 (St. Gallen, Graubünden, Aargau, Thurgau, Ticino, Vaud), four count from 1291.
- In Hard, type a canton. The search matches canton names too, so "Lucerne" lists all its districts, and a green canton tile offers a checkbox that limits the list. Wil and See-Gaster (St. Gallen) are good openers, about 2.2 districts left on average; the canton-wide areas of Neuchâtel and Geneva are among the worst.
- Do not trust the namesake. Entlebuch's largest municipality is Wolhusen.
- In Impossible, read the scale bar before you guess. Areas run from 6.3 km² (district of Solothurn) to 1,373.6 km² (Surselva), and seven districts are a single municipality.
Data and sources
All figures come from official sources, retrieved on 14 October 2026. Cantons, districts and municipalities follow the FSO register of municipalities as of that date, so Moutier (moved on 1 January 2026) is in Jura as its own district. Population is the permanent resident population on 31 December 2025 (FSO, STATPOP). Areas and outlines come from swisstopo's swissBOUNDARIES3D; a canton's area includes its lakes, a district's leaves out the 444.8 km² of lakes that belong to no municipality. Highest and lowest points come from swisstopo's elevation models and names, official languages from the cantonal constitutions, years of joining from the Federal Chancellery's "The Swiss Confederation – a brief guide". District seats come from Wikipedia, checked against Wikidata.
Data: Federal Statistical Office (FSO), © swisstopo; district seats: Wikipedia.
Data changes never touch past or current answers. A change to the list of cantons or districts takes effect only from a future midnight, with the old data kept for every earlier day. The next update will be the 2026 population, which the FSO usually publishes in late summer of the following year.
Questions
Is the answer the same for everyone?
Yes. Answers are fixed in advance and change at midnight Zurich time.
Can I play earlier days?
No, there is no archive. The page shows yesterday's answer.
Why is my streak gone?
Progress, statistics and streak live only in your browser; there is no account. Clearing site data, private browsing or a new device starts from zero, and so does skipping a day.
Why is Geneva a "district" in Hard?
Nine cantons have no districts. Leaving them out would leave holes in the map.
Why is there no distance column?
A test version before launch had one, and it made the game far too easy.
Appenzell Innerrhoden's lowest point is 539 m? Many lists say 560 m.
We read lowest points from swisstopo's elevation model along the canton boundary, which gives 539 m at Bruggtobel.
Which names does the search know?
German, French, Italian and English names, abbreviations (ZH, GR) and spellings without accents. Wallis, Valais and Vallese find the same canton.
I found a wrong number.
Please write; the address is on the About page. Fixes follow the same rule: from a future midnight on.
History
- 14 October 2026: launch with puzzle No. 1 in all three levels. The same day: close tiles in muted orange, map zoom (buttons, double-click, Ctrl+wheel, pinch), and the Borders column, first in Normal, then in Hard and Impossible. Older guesses show a dash there.
- 15 October 2026: in Hard, a green canton tile offers a checkbox to filter the list.
- Data version c1 since launch, no cutover so far.
Other guides: Swissdle · CH-Soccerdle · Pilldle · About Daily Guess