Cryptic Countries

This handout round features 15 cryptic crossword style clues to be deciphered to give the names of 15 countries. For example, the correct answer to the clue "A vital new state" would be Latvia, because if you rearrange the letters from "A vital" into a new state, you can spell "Latvia".

A few of these cryptic clues are fairly straightforward to get teams up and running, but there are also some that are likely to take a great deal of puzzling over before teams arrive at the correct answer, so this round should keep teams entertained for a while.

It is recommended that these cryptic clues are used in a quiz as a handout round. For more information on handout rounds and our recommended use for them in quizzes click here

Please note that this handout round also appears in Weekly Quiz 55. If you would prefer to purchase our pre-compiled full weekly quizzes, then click here, where you can find quizzes with a handout round, 2 rounds on general subjects, a specialist subject round, a connections round, an initial letter link round, and a stick or twist round, as well as professionally designed answer sheets and full instructions on how to run your quiz. If, however, you prefer to use your own format for your quizzes, then this handout round should help towards creating an entertaining and challenging quiz.