What Is MapTap? The Daily Globe Game, Explained

If you've seen someone share a score from a game with a spinning 3D globe, that's MapTap. It went from nowhere to one of the most-played daily geography games on iPhone in under a year, and it's one of the few games in this genre that grew mainly by word of mouth rather than by being a browser tab someone sent you.

Here's what it actually is, what it costs, and where it stops — including the one question it never asks.

Full disclosure: we make Where&When, a history guessing game that appears near the end of this guide. Everything below was checked in September 2026.

The short version

MapTap is a daily geography game. Each day it gives you five locations connected to events that happened on that date in history, and you find each one by tapping a 3D globe. After each guess, it tells you how far off you were and gives you the historical context for the place — why that spot mattered on this day.

That rating is worth pausing on. A 4.9 average across five figures of ratings is unusually high for a free game, and it's the clearest signal that the core loop works.

How a round plays

You get a location prompt, you spin the globe, you tap where you think it is. The score is distance-based: the closer your tap, the more points. Five of those makes a day.

The framing is the interesting part. The locations aren't random — they're tied to "this day in history." So the game is nominally geography, but the reason you're being sent to a particular stretch of coastline is that something happened there on this date, and you get told what after you guess.

That's a smart piece of design. It gives the game a reason to exist beyond pin-dropping, and it means the content refreshes itself daily without anyone having to invent new puzzles.

Alongside the daily, there are 50+ curated practice challenges — world capitals, major cities, themed collections — that you can play any time, plus global leaderboards, badges and streaks. Recent updates have added more competitive modes: a survival mode called Frontier, head-to-head Versus matches, free-for-all multiplayer, and custom drills you can build for yourself or a group.

What MapTap+ costs

The game is free to download and the daily is free to play. MapTap+ costs $2.99 a month or $14.99 a year (checked on the US App Store, September 2026).

The subscription adds sharper satellite detail on the globe, the full run of practice maps, private groups for playing with friends, access to the last 90 days of games, custom drill sets, and a curated Best of MapTap collection.

This is a fair structure, and worth naming as such: the free tier is the whole daily game, not a demo of it. Compare that with GeoGuessr, whose own App Store listing says a subscription is required for full access including maps, game modes and multiplayer.

The one question MapTap doesn't ask

MapTap tells you that something happened on this date. It doesn't ask you to work out when.

That's not a flaw — it's a design choice, and it keeps the game fast. But it does mean the history is delivered rather than deduced. You tap the right fjord, and then you're told the story. The historical thinking happens after the guessing, not during it.

This is the line that separates the two halves of this genre:

• Place-only games (MapTap, GeoGuessr, WorldGuessr, Globle) ask where. History, when present, is flavor.
• Place-and-year games (TimeGuessr, WhenTaken, Where&When) ask where and when, which means the scene in front of you has to carry enough evidence to date it.

If what you like about MapTap is the globe and the daily rhythm, stay where you are. If what hooked you was the historical context, the place-and-year games give you more to chew on, because you have to reason your way to the date instead of being handed it.

What to play alongside it

If you want the year as well as the place

TimeGuessr is the biggest game in this bracket. Real historical photographs, five a day, and you guess both where and when each was taken. It has a well-rated iPhone app (4.9 from about 2,500 ratings) as well as the website. If you like MapTap's daily-five structure, this is the same shape with a second axis.

WhenTaken is the closest thing to TimeGuessr: five photographs a day, a location and a year each, out of 1,000 points, with an archive for days you missed.

Where&When — ours — changes what you're looking at. Instead of photographs, each round is an AI-generated scene of a named historical event, shown with no caption. You pin the place and enter the year inside 60 seconds, then the reveal tells you which event it was and why it mattered. Because it isn't limited to what a camera recorded, the pool runs from the 1st century to the 2020s, so a round can just as easily be ancient as modern.

Its honest trade-offs: it's iPhone-only, the images are illustrated reconstructions rather than photographs, and Topics and Tournament need Sign in with Apple. It's free.

If you want pure country-guessing

Globle gives you one mystery country a day and unlimited guesses. Each country you name is shaded by how close it is — warmer means nearer — so you triangulate your way in. Most players land it in five to eight guesses.

Worldle shows you a country's silhouette and gives you six tries, with distance, direction and a proximity percentage after each. A new puzzle appears at local midnight, and it's free to play, though the archive is a paid extra.

If you want Street View

WorldGuessr is the free one. You're dropped into Street View somewhere on Earth and score up to 5,000 points for pinning yourself. Its listing promises no paywall, no play limits and no catch, and it's on both iPhone and the web. GeoGuessr is the original and still has the deepest map library and competitive scene, but needs a subscription for most of it — we go through exactly what's free in is there a free GeoGuessr app for iPhone.

Where MapTap sits in the genre

For the full spread of daily puzzles in this family, including the year-only games, see our daily history games roundup. If you want the comparison specifically between the games that ask both questions, GeoGuessr for history covers seven of them.

Frequently asked questions

Is MapTap free?

Yes. The daily game — all five locations — is free, and so are the practice challenges in limited form. MapTap+ is $2.99 a month or $14.99 a year and adds the full practice library, private groups, a 90-day archive, custom drills and a sharper globe.

Is there a MapTap web version?

Yes, the game is playable in a browser at maptap.gg, alongside the iPhone and Android apps.

Does MapTap teach history?

It delivers history rather than testing it. Each location comes with context explaining why that place mattered on this date, but the guessing itself is purely geographic. If you want the history to be the puzzle, a place-and-year game asks more of you.

What's the difference between MapTap and GeoGuessr?

Both ask where, but almost nothing else matches. MapTap gives you a named location to find on a globe; GeoGuessr drops you into Street View and asks you to work out where you are from what's around you. MapTap's daily is free in full; GeoGuessr's listing states that full access needs a subscription.

What's the best alternative to MapTap on iPhone?

Depends what you want more of. For the same daily-five rhythm with a year to guess as well, TimeGuessr. For history from before photography, Where&When. For Street View without a subscription, WorldGuessr. The best history guessing games for iPhone compares the native apps in more detail.