Apps · Erato · In testing
Erato
Learn the world the way geographers do: on an unlabeled map.
Erato is a map quiz for phones and tablets. It asks you to find places on a map with no labels, or to name the place it highlights, and it keeps track of what you have mastered so your practice goes where it is needed. It works offline and never asks who you are.
Preview, not a screenshot
How it works
Four ways to study, one map.
Find on the map
The app names a place; you tap it. Countries, states, cities, rivers, lakes, seas, straits, mountains and more, each drawn at its real size and shape.
Name the feature
The map highlights a place; you choose its name from four. Wrong choices come from the same region and type, so guessing does not work for long.
Guided practice
A unit is taught in order, four places at a time: see them, then find them. The way to learn a region you have never studied.
Mixed sessions and the daily challenge
Find and name questions mixed over any set you choose, plus a ten-question daily challenge that is the same for everyone in the world that day.
Progress
A map of the world that fills in as you learn.
Mastery map
Every place you have practised is coloured by how well you know it. Regions fill in over weeks, and the gaps show you what to study next.
Spaced review
Places you missed come back sooner; places you know come back later. A short review session each day keeps a whole semester's geography current.
Streaks and badges
A daily goal, a day streak with one grace day so a missed day does not erase a month, and badges for mastering a region, a chapter or a feature type.
Who it's for
Students, independent learners and instructors.
Students in a course
Erato ships with a complete World Regional Geography course pack: ten chapters, nearly 800 places, in the order they are taught. Study the chapter, get tested on it, and bring a completion code back to class.
Independent learners
Explore any region by feature type, from the capitals of Africa to the rivers of Asia, with the same modes, review and mastery map.
Instructors
Build a pack for your own course from the atlas and hand it to students as a short code. The app installs the pack; it never learns who your students are.
Privacy
Nothing to sign up for, nothing sent.
Erato runs entirely on your device. There is no account, no sign-in and no network request during ordinary play. It does not ask for your location, and it contains no advertising, analytics or crash-reporting software. You can delete everything it knows from Settings.
- Progress, mastery and settings stay on the device.
- The optional competition layer, when it arrives, will use a generated handle and a random identifier. It will never ask for a name, email, phone number or contacts.
- Maps are bundled with the app. No map provider sees where you are or what you study.
Status
In testing now.
Erato is being tested on iPhone and iPad, with Android testing next. It will ship for iOS and Android, on phones and tablets. If you teach geography or just want to know the world better and would like to help test it, send a note.
Named for Eratosthenes of Cyrene, the Greek scholar who measured the Earth's circumference in the third century BC and gave geography its name.