NATO quiz

What's on this map

The 32 members of NATO, the alliance founded in 1949. The two newest are Finland, which joined in 2023, and Sweden, which joined in 2024. Only two members are outside Europe, the United States and Canada, which makes the map a band across the North Atlantic.

Think of it in waves. The twelve founding members were the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Italy and Portugal. Greece and Turkey joined in 1952, West Germany in 1955 and Spain in 1982.

After the Cold War the map moved east: Poland, Czechia and Hungary in 1999, then seven more in 2004, including the three Baltic states. The Balkans followed with Albania and Croatia in 2009, Montenegro in 2017 and North Macedonia in 2020.

The blanks inside Europe are worth knowing too: Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, Malta and Cyprus are not members, along with Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The ones people miss

• Iceland – a founding member. Hook: the only member with no army of its own.
• Turkey – easy to forget because most of it is in Asia. Hook: a member since 1952, holding the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.
• Montenegro and North Macedonia – small Balkan members. Hook: the two newest members before the Nordic pair.
• Slovenia vs Slovakia – both joined in 2004. Hook: Slovenia is on the Adriatic, Slovakia sits above Hungary.
• Austria – surrounded by members but not one itself. Hook: the blank between Germany and Hungary.

How to learn it

• Do Find on the map in joining order: the founders first, then the eastern waves.
• Learn the European blanks as a set: Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, Malta, Cyprus, Serbia, Bosnia.
• Run Capitals for the smaller members: Podgorica, Skopje, Tirana, Bratislava and Ljubljana.
• Done is a clean Name them all plus a perfect Flags round, which is a fair challenge with 32.