🐬 World Memory Palace

How to build a World Memory Palace

Do you have a fully working system of memory palaces in your mental toolbox, right now? Follow this recipe.

Why do we not use mnemonics more?

We know the methods work, we know they can be developed into powerful tools, yet no country seems to have made mnemonics an integral part of the pedagogy of their school system.

This is strange considering that memory techniques could be taught from the age of six or seven, and at least from around thirteen.

Of course, mnemonics should not overtake all aspects of learning. Immersion is needed. Repetition is needed.

But wouldn’t it be nice if a child could quickly memorize a framework for understanding quickly like a basic vocabulary, like nowing the name of certain countries and their capitas of a region or anything similar?

Keywords and facts

Memory techniques are fantastic for learning keywords - facts - about historical figures like artists, politicians, scientists and other famous people; geographic facts like capitals, important mountains, rivers, lakes and ocean; the periodic table and more about each element, history; the solar system and its planets, and general knowledge about dimensions in our observable space?

Ask a person what the capital of Norway is, and most will not now. If you knew without any effort - just thanks to your teacher teaching you this system - wouldn’t you prefer it?

Why aren’t schools interested?

In the 1960s, memorizing facts in the regular fashion was still considered something virtuous, just as homework, even though a wave of new ideas entered teaching in the beginning of the 70s, as seen in the Scandinavian systems of schooling.

But if only students in the 1970s had mastered memory techniques, too. A few generations more would have had better grades.

Imagine a situation where top grades could have been reached by 80% or even 90% of the students, giving all of the students top marks, forcing politicians to think differently about schooling, universities, jobs, job preparation, and grades.

More importantly - imagine your child not ignorant about world geography, history, and basic scientific knowledge.

The Middle Ages

Mnemonics was probably used by Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Plato, in their respective schools.

They did not believe in written information, so they relied on oral teaching.
And these methods were more freely used in Greece as a whole. In fact, they continued into and through most of the middle ages. But something happened, a decision was made.

Mnemonics stopped being a subject in the middle ages thanks to the catholic church prohibiting the methods, as they relied upon ‘’strange’’ humorous mental exaggeration. Weird things that normal people don’t do. The church didn't like that.

And the church even executed Giordano Bruno in 1600 by burning him to death for a conjunct of these practices (he was a teacher of mnemonics) plus the fact that he dared to believe that stars are suns in other solar systems, perhaps with beings like us.

That was the last straw as far as the establishment was concerned.

Short overview

These days mnemonics is taught, of course, both at school and university level. But only in a few places, and the subject is not systematically taught since the middle ages.

Memorization techniques are not used enough, other than people who compete in memory championships, which is a very narrow group of people, and other nerds and outsiders like myself.

But, to give you an idea, anyone can learn how to memorize a list of ten obects in and out of sequence in a matter of ten minutes.

Ten minutes.

How it is done

Let us memorize the following shopping list - an un-numbered list.

Start with chicken, and make a funny mental animation/scene with toothpaste, then toothpaste and newspaper, then newspaper and eggs, then eggs and mango, then mango and tacos, etc.

(Examples: place a giant chicken in a super market cart outside your local supermarket. Then come up with a scene that involves the chicken and ‘toothpaste’. Maybe the chicken is pouring toothpaste into his beak, then a man hits the chicken with a news paper, then the chicken falls dead, and eggs pour out, then imagine you go to buy mangoes insside the fruit section, but there are only giant eggs there, then a mexicon grabs some eggs ans places in a taco shell, and stuffs your mouth with it, then someone pours orange uice over him, etc.
This is how to memorize a chain of objects. It is called the link-method, or linking method. Make an absurd, violent, funny or out-off-place visualization between each pair of obejcts, overlapping the previous one.)

Memorizing in sequence

But it is almost equally easy to memorize such a list in a sequence, so that you can say exactly which number is which item, like this:

Turn the numbers from one to ten into visualizable objects and make funny “video scenes”/mental animations, involving each of the keywords of this shopping list.

Examples:

… a book of laws represents the number ten, as in the ten commandments.
Invent ten, separate funny mental scenes; mental animations - joining the two objects together in memorable ways.

Memorize the numbered shopping list

Visualizing this shouldn't take more than a few seconds per number, after some training. But start with 30 to 90 seconds per number.

Make a funny scene for each pair of objects, mnemonic object and shopping list object.

Taking this further to 100

So imagine we make ten shopping lists, for a total of 100 objects.
Having ten memory palaces with ten rooms each is useful for memorizing keywords within chapters, for example. But let us imagine we are memorizing ten shopping lists:

Let us ust look a little at the phenomeon of memory palaces.

What is a memory palace?

Memory palaces are imaginary houses in your mind, where you place images that represent that you wish to memorize.

Imagine your own home from the entrance, into the hall, and through the different rooms. Note which objects and furniture are in each room and attach the mental images of objects that represent keywords you wish to memorize, like a shopping list.

Place apples on the sofa, bananas on the desk, milk on the bookshelf, coffee in the arm chair, dog food in the lamp, etc, just to show the example of a list where keywords (of a shopping list) are ‘’linked’’ to objects of the room from a memory palace.

How do you start with memory palaces?

You already have a virtual memory palace based on numbers from one to ten.
But classically, a memory palace is a building or house or room.

Just visualizing the home where you live, or that of your parents, or a friend? Or a school, hospital, museum, airport or other institution?

Yes, that could be the case. But the truth about literal memory palaces is that you are limited to most people's homes, which are small for mnemonic learning.
In the old days most people could easily visualize their own farm, say (not that they did), but modern man now lives in three room apartments, or less - micro houses. So, perhaps only one to thirty rooms, in the largest villas, apartments and houses.

A little more if you're a royal or a latin american dictator. You can add walks in your neighborhood as extensions to your memory palace. And you could add many objects to a room you have, of course, but larger objects are better in visualization, so space is a sought after commodity.

The way forward is going virtual.

Virtual memory palace

Not virtual in that everything is imagined from scratch, but virtual as in a system with representational objects. A system for you to come up with images that represent rooms, that you then bind together in a structure/sequence - like that of a large house, or a series of houses - that you can easily remember/visualize.
If you could visualize one room or space or area for each country of the world, all 200 of them, then you would quite easily have a 200 room memory palace. Instead of rooms you would have your memory of certain places like a) graveyard, b) modern restaurant, c) iTunes store, etc .

Towns, neighborhoods and streets

But you can add much more detail, by using real places, and adding town names, neighborhood names, street names, stores and points of interest. I am currently (august 2024) making a memory palace for the cities of Paris and London, so that anyone can add these two world cities to their repertoire in addition to the city they currently live in, grew up in or another one you know well.
Bind it all together in groups of one or more cities, countries, parts of a continent, or even continent by continent to store volumes of textbooks, lectures, speeches, notes, information on important people, etc, placed in one system that you carry with you with no need for wifi.

How many countries?

First of all: why have I chosen 200 countries, and not the the UN norm of 195?
Simply for mathematical reasons. It fits with the regular decimal system we organically prefer because humans have ten fingers, but 200 also fits two sets of the Major System groups, namely one group of of 1 to 100 and another group of 101 to 200 pegs that we get by expanding the regular Major System to a new level - reusing the phonemes but for a different level or row (a, b, c, d, etc) if you like, as we will see just below.

Mathematically, for our purposes, it is better to work with 200 countries as opposed to 193, 195 or 197.

One specific sequence

Make sure you memorize all 200 countries in a special sequence.
How? Make a particular route through the world by starting in one country and going through each and every country on that continent in a specific manner - the same manner every time - before moving onto the next continent.

This way you may memorize sequential data like speeches or manuscripts/textbooks easily, by adding images from countries lined up next to the other in your route through the world, as keywords to remember your speech.

To memorize a speech simply travel a route through the countries you have set aside for the speech, and add keywords to each country/loci. Or add keywords for pegs to some countries as you need more space to add branches to your knowledge.

Starting point is Morocco

If you look at the map of Africa wanting to cover it country by country, and if you start your mnemonic journey in Morocco, say, you could then logically move to Algeria as a second step, then Tunisia, Libya, Egypt to complete five of the top countries.

Then head to the country just below - Sudan, and continue back west towards the coast through Chad, Niger, Mali, Mauritania to complete ten countries.

You now have a way through the first part of the map, and a simple way of memorizing a mnemonic journey of, say, ten pegs/loci/stations - like ten keywords of a speech.

I have used the same mnemonic objects for the numbers one to ten as in the shopping list example. But you can use the Major System.
Then continue through the territory of Western Sahara, number 11 (to complete the Maghreb region), Senegal is 12, The Gambia is 13, Guinea-Bissau 14, Guinea 15, Sierra Leone 16, Liberia 17, Cote d'Ivoire 18, Ghana 19, Togo 20.

That is another ten countries, and it completes the first 20 countries of Africa. You now have 20 loci to memorize keywords.
Tips and ideas for memorizing geographical data
I have placed some examples of ideas for memorizing capital and country in the fourth parenthesis of the list example just below.


*


(tea) Morocco (MOR) TOPIC: morbidity/TOPICAL OBJECT: skull/TOPICAL LOCATION: graveyard (37.46 million people: mac-point-rash) - Rabat. (a rabbit jumping out of an open grave in a graveyard, and grabbing a cup of tea with skulls in it.

Codes for population are in the third parenthesis, using the first level of the Major System, as substitute words for numbers. Morocco has 37.46 million inhabitants, for example: mac-rash.

The second parenthesis is the 3-letter phonetic identifier for generating memorable topic ideas. Morocco is MOR, which then gives the idea of a topic called morbidity, where graveyard can be location number one.

The words in the first parenthesis (just after the number) are the mnemonic words from the expanded Major List, level b - (tea, knee, omo, ore, loo, isha, egg), - to add/associate a specific number to each country, in a particular sequence. Tea is 1 (is Morocco), knee is 2 (is Algeria), OMO is 3 is Tunisia, etc.
This way you start where you want, and continue in the sequence you have planned.

You can learn the list of countries and capitals without memorizing the data in a numbered list. But the benefits of learning the list of countries with an added sequential number is that you may recite the whole list of countries at any time, in and out of sequence. And use this as a way of memorizing other things than geographical data.

How to start memorizing the list of countries?

Memorize using the first mnemonic object, in the first parenthisis just after the number (tea, kee, omo, etc from level b of the Major System). This is the object that will give you the number of the country. Morocco is one, Algeria is two, Tunisia is three, etc.

But how do you visualize Morocco, or any other country?
Use the word itself as an inspiration. Morocco consists of MOR which can be used as a reference to the country, and it is even referred to as MOR in the Olympics and in other sports events. So, for our purposes, Morocco is MOR.
And all 200 other countries gets a similar three-letter code. This is then used to find a first topic - morbidity, mornings, mourning, mortars, mortgages, etc.
Let us say morbidity is our first topic choice for Morocco.

Topic number one for number one

Think about a location that suits the topic of morbidity. Coroners office, morgue, graveyard ... say you choose graveyard. Well, there you have a representational location for Morocco.

Graveyard.

How to memorize? You have a topic, which is morbidity. Find a topical object to further represent Morocco, perhaps a coffin or a skull. Say a skull.
The mnemoninc object is a skull.

Make a link between a human skull and our mnemonic word for the number one, 001 - tea (second level of the Major System). Visualize a cup of tea, or a giant tea bag, or a large box of tea bags, or a bowl of tea leaves ... whatever you choose, plus a skull in some shape or form.
This means that Morocco (morbidity-skull) is country number one as you made a visualization/scene linking skull and tea.

Memorizing capitals

Want to memorize the capital city to each country?
Then just make an additional visualization, just like a very small, funny mental TikTok video.

As an example of linking a rabbit (Rabat) to a graveyard is seeing a rabbit jump out of the open grave from a graveyard. Perhaps make a story of this (adding story element).

That is the scene needed at the very minimum to memorize a number, the name of the capital, and link it to each country.

The whole process should take less than a minute to both come up with and memorize, and I have come up with ideas for all 200 topics plus 200 topical objects plus 200 topical locations below (work in progress August 2024.)

Africa

001 Morocco Rabat
002 Algeria Algiers
003 Tunisia Tunis
004 Libya Tripoli
005 Egypt Cairo
006 Sudan Karthoum
007 Chad N Djamena
008 Niger Niamey
009 Mali Bamako
010 Mauritania Nouakchott
011 W. Sahara Laayoune
012 Senegal Dakar
013 The Gambia Banjul
014 Guinea-Bisseau Bissau
015 Guinea Conakry
016 Sierra Leone Freetown
017 Liberia Monrovia
018 Ivory Coast Yamoussoukro
019 Burkina Faso Ouagadougou
020 Ghana Accra
021 Togo Lome
022 Benin Porto Novo
023 Nigeria Abuja
024 Cameroon Yaounde
025 CAF Bangui
026 South Sudan Juba
027 Ethiopia Addis Ababa
028 Somalia Mogadishu
029 Djibouti Djibouti
030 Eritrea Asmara
031 S. Tome S. Tome
032 Eq. Guinea Ciudad de la Paz/Malabo
033 Gabon Libreville
034 ROC Brazzaville
035 DRC Kinshasa
036 Uganda Kampala
037 Kenya Nairobi
038 Tanzania Dodoma
039 Burundi Gitega
040 Rwanda Kigali
041 Angola Luanda
042 Zambia Lusaka
043 Zimbabwe Harare
044 Malawi Lilongwe
045 Mozambique Maputo
046 Namibia Windhoek
047 Botswana Gabarone
048 S. Africa C. Town/Bloemfontein
049 Lesotho Maseru
050 Eswatini Mbabane
051 Madagascar Antananarivo
052 Mauritius Port Louis
053 Comoros Moroni
054 Seychelles Victoria
055 Cape Verde Praia

Substitute images/words

To use these countries of Africa as memory palaces if you haven't been to each country you need to make up substitute locations that you know, and associate these to specific countries. If you have been to each and every country take a memory from say, the airport, port, railway station or any other transport hub where you entered the country. Just as an example.
But there is no need to have travelled to all these countries. Just come up with substitute images.

Country number one is Morocco. How do we find a suitable substitute image/location to use here?

Country abbreviations

You could imagine a place that is, say, typically Moroccan, like a Moroccan restaurant or a market. But there are very many countries in the world, and not that many ethnic restaurants, perhaps.
So the best option is to just choose a topic according to some system. Like a phonetic system, just as the Major System.
Use the first three letters of each country, or similar, as a phonetic suggestion for words.

Morocco can be MOR.

And the topic could be a) morning, b) mourning, or c) morbidity, as three random examples. The first one could give you places like cafe, diner, breakfast place, reception at work, meeting room, office, etc. The second idea could give you funeral parlor, church, hospital, etc. But option C is perhaps a little easier. Morbidity may give you graveyard,coroner office,morgue,rooftop sniper location, serial killer home (like the motel in Psycho) etc.

I choose morbidity as the main ''mnemonic topic'' for the country of Morocco, and I then choose a generic location for that topic - graveyard.

Morocco - morbidity - graveyard.

Loci for each country

This generic location, graveyard, will now be my loco for the country of Morocco.
I am not thinking about a particular graveyard, only the word graveyard, as such.
To remember that the capital of Morocco/morbidity/graveyard is Rabat, I take note of the location (peg/mnemonic object/substitute object) and add one visualization/scene/event to the mix.

So, here, I visualize a rabbit (Rabat) jumping out of a grave in a graveyard/the graveyard representing Morocco in my mind.

It would be possible to add other pegs to my idea of the word graveyard representing Morocco like

Think of yourself as the author of a story, or a YouTuber making funny clips.
Make a story where the above ten stations feature prominently, so that you may remember that they are a part of your graveyard/Morocco scene.

You can add information to each of these, as GDP, land area, government, or any other geographical data, for example. As I have done above.

By adding ten simple stations/objects at stations in an imaginary scene, you can quickly memorize data in and out of sequence for each country/topic either as you need, on the go, or for more permanent studies or use.

Or be more specific

For more detailed use, or for expanded use, think about a specific graveyard. Or even more than one specific graveyard you know that exists out there.
So, if you live in Paris you can choose Pere Lachaise. Or in London: Highgate. Rome - Verano. If you know three graveyards in three cities like this, or three other towns, cities or location, you may know more locations, too. And with relatively little much extra effort you would have three separate versions of the world map system - one for each city.

Practical and easy for globetrotters, like YouTubers.

So, you can see how it is a flexible method. Numbers/countries 1 to 200, for a total of 600 plus perhaps even ten story loci per station which would give 2000 pegs for each set with a total of 6000 just by that hack.

A. Paris, 200 pegs
B. London, 200 pegs
c. New York, 200 pegs

Let us go through the rest of the countries to memorize.

The Middle East

(lash) Saudi Arabia (SAU)(36.41) - Riyad
(lock)Yemen (YEM) - Sana
(loaf) Oman (OMA) - Muscat
(lip) UAE (EMI) - Abu Dhabi
(choos) Qatar (KAT) - Doha
(shot) Bahrain (BAR)- Manama
(shine) Kuwait (WAY)- Kuwait Ciry
(sham) Iraq (RAK) - Bagdad
(shore) Syria (SYR)- Damascus
(shoal) Jordan (JOR)- Amman
(shish) Israel (ISR)- Jerusalem
(shaggy) Lebanon (LEB) - Beirut
(shove) Palestine (PAL)- Jerusalem/Ramallah
(ship) Iran (RAN)- Teheran

 

056   Saudi Arabia SAR  Riyadh
057   Yemen YEN  Sana'a
058   Oman OMA  Muscat
059   UAE UAE  Abu Dhabi
060   Quatar CAT  Doha
061   Bahrain BAR  Manama
062   Kuwait WAI  Kuwait City
063   Iraq IRA  Baghdad

064

   Syria SYR  Damascus
065   Jordan JOD  Amman
066   Israel IS  Jerusalem
067   Lebanon LEB  Beirut
068   Palestine PAS  Ramallah/Jerusalem
069   Iran IRA  Tehran

 

Central Asia and Asia

(keys) Georgia (JOR) - Tblisi
(cot) Azerbadjan (AZZ) - Baku
(cone) Armenia (ARM)- Jerevan
(comb) Turkmenistan (TUK)- Ashgabat
(igor) Uzbekhistan (UZI)- Tashkent
(coal) Kazakhstan (CAS)- Astana
(kush) Kyrgyzstan (KIR)- Bishkek
(keg) Tajikhistan (JIK)- Dushanbe
(cough)Afghanistan (AFG) - Kabul
(cap) Pakistan (PAK)- Islamabad
(vuzz) India (IND) - New Dehli
(fat) Sri Lanka (SRI) - Colombo
(fun)Maldives (DIV) - Male
(FM) Nepal (NEP) - Katmandu
(fur) Tibet (TIB)- Llhasa
(foil) Bhutan (BUT) - Thimphu
(fetch) Bangladesh (BAN) - Dhaka
(fig) Myanmar (MAR) - Naypyidaw
(FIFA) Laos (LOS) - Ventiane
(veep) Vietnam (NAM)- Hanoi
(pose) Cambodia (BOD) - Phnom Penh
(pose) Thailand (TAI)- Bangkok
(peat) Malaysia (AYS)- Kuala Lumpur
(pony) Singapore (SAP)- Singapore
(Pimm) Indonesia (ISI) - Jakarta
(pier) Brunei (BRU) - Bandar Seri Begawan
(pool) Phillipines (FIL) - Manila
(bash)Taiwan (WAN) - Taipei
(bag) China (BEI) - Beijing
(boef) South Korea (SOK) - Seoul
(pep)North Korea (NOK) - Pyongyang
(doses) Japan (JAP) - Tokyo
(tee)Mongolia (MON) - Ulan Bator

 

070 Armenia  Jerevan        
071 Georgia  Tblisi        
072 Azerbaijan  Baku        
073 Turkmenistan  Ashgabat        
074 Uzbekistan  Tashkent        
075 Kazakhstan  Astana        
076 Kyrgyzstan  Bishkek        
077 Tajikistan  Dushanbe        
078 Afghanistan  Kabul        
079 Pakistan  Islamabad        
080 India  New Dehli        
081 Sri Lanka  Colombo        
082 Maldives  Male        
083 Nepal  Kathmandu        
084 Tibet  Lhasa        
085 Bhutan  Thimphu        
086 Bangladesh  Dhaka        
087 Myanmar  Naypyidaw        
088 Laos  Ventiane        
089 Vietnam  Hanoi        
090 Cambodia  Phnom Penh        
091 Thailand  Bangok        
092 Malaysia  Kuala Lumpur        
093 Singapore  Singapore        
094 Indonesia  Jakarta        
095 Brunei  Bandar Seri Begawan        
096 Phillipines  Manila        
097 Taiwan  Taipei        
098 China  Beijing        
099 South Korea  Seoul        
100 North Korea  Pyonyang        
101 Japan  Tokyo        
102 Mongolia  Ulan Bator        

 

Europe

(UN) Russia (RUS) - Moscow
(mow) Belarus (BEL) - Minsk
(IRA) Poland (POL) - Warsaw
(OL) Lithuania (LIT) - Vilnius
(ushuaia) Latvia (LAT) - Riga
(quai) Estonia (EST) - Tallinn
(IV) Finland (FIN) - Helsinki
(poo) Sweden (SWE) - Stockholm
(dos) Norway (NOR) - Oslo
(toot) Iceland (ICE)
(toon) Denmark (DEN) - Copenhagen
(team) United Kingdom (UNI) - London
(dire) Ireland (IRE) - Dublin
(doll) Netherlands (NED) - Amsterdam
(dosha) Belgium (BEL) - Brussels
(dock) Luxembourg (LUX) -
(toffee) France (FRA) - Paris
Andorra (RUS) - Andorra La Vieja
Monaco (MOC) - Monte Carlo (mocca/italian cafe)
Spain (SPA) - Madrid
Portugal (POR) - Lisbon
Italy (ITA) - Rome
Vatican (VAT) - Vatican City
San Marino (MAR) - San Marino
Malta (MAL) - Valetta
Greece (GRE) - Athens
Cyprus (CYP) - Nicosia
Turkey (TUR) - Ankara
Bulgaria (BUL) - Sofia
North Macedonia (MAC) - Skopje
Albania (ALB) - Tirana
Kosovo (KOS) - Pristina
Serbia (SER) - Belgrade
Montenegro (MON) - Podgorica
Bosnia and Herzegovina (BOS) - Sarajevo
Croatia (CRO) - Zagreb
Slovenia (SLO) - Ljubljana
Romania (ROM) - Bucharest
Moldova (MOL)- Chisinau
Hungary (HUN) - Budapest
Slovakia (SLO) - Bratislava
Czechia (CHE) - Prague
Austria (AUS) - Vienna
Switzerland (SWI) - Bern
Lichtehstein (LIC) - Vaduz
Germany (GER) - Berlin

 

103   Russia  Moscow  
104   Ukraine  Kyiv  
105   Belarus  Minsk  
106   Poland  Warsaw  
107   Lithuania  Vilnius  
108   Latvia  Riga  
109   Estonia  Tallinn  
110   Finland  Helsinki  
111   Sweden  Stockholm  
112   Norway  Oslo  
113   Iceland  Reykjarvik  
114   Denmark  Copenhagen  
115   UK  London  
116   Ireland  Dublin  
117   Netherlands  Amsterdam  
118   Belgium  Brussel  
119   Luxembourg  Luxembourg  
120   France  Paris  
121   Andorra  Andorra la Vieja  
122   Monaco  Monte Carlo  
123   Spain  Madrid  
124   Portugal  Lisbon  
125  

Italy

  Rome  
 126  

Vatican

  Vatican City  
127   San Marino  San  Marino  
128   Malta  Valetta  
129   Greece  Athens  
130   Cyprus  Nicosia  
131   Turkey  Istanbul  
132   Bulgaria  Sofia  
133   N. Macedonia  Skopje  
134   Albania  Tirana  
135   Kosovo  Pristina  
136   Serbia  Belgrade  
137   Montenegro  Podgoorica  
138   Bosnia  Sarajevo  
139   Croatia  Zagreb  
140   Slovenia  Ljubljana  
141   Romania  Bucharest  
142   Moldova  Chisinau  
143   Hungary  Budapest  
144   Slovakia  Bratislava  
145   Czechia  Prague  
146   Austria  Vienna  
147   Switzerland  Bern  
148   Lichtenstein  Vaduz  
149   Germany  Berlin  

 


Oceania
Australia (AUS) - Canberra
New Zealand (NEW) - Wellingnton
Micronesia (MIC) - Palikir
Cook Islands (COO) - Avarua
Kiribati (KIR) - Tarawa
Palau (PAL) - Ngerulmud
Timor Leste (TIM) - Dili
Papa New Guinea (PAP) - Port Morseby
Solomon Islands (SOL) - Honiara
Nauru (NAU) - Yaren
Vanuatu (VAN) - Port Vila
Tuvalu (TUV) - Funafuti
Fiji (FIJ) - Suva
Samoa (SAM) - Apia
Tonga (TON) - Nuku alofa
Niue (NEW) - Alofi

 

150   Australia  Canberra    
151   New Zealand  Auckland    
152   Micronesia  Palikir    
153   Cook Islands  Avarua    
154   Kiribati  Tarawa    
155   Palau  Ngerulmud    
156   Timor Leste  Dili    
157   Papa New Guinea  Port Morseby    
158   Solomon Islands  Honiara    
159   Nauru  Yaren    
160   Vanuatu  Port Vila    
161   Tuvalu  Funafuti    
162   Fiji  Suva    
163   Samoa  Apia    
164   Tonga  Nuku Alofa    
165   Niue  Alofi    


Americas
Chile (CHI) - Santiago
Argentina (ARG) - Buenos Aires
Uruguay (URU) - Montevideo
Paraguay (PAR) - Asuncion
Brasil (BRA) - Brasilia
Bolivia (BOL) - La Paz/Sucre
Peru (PER) - Lima
Ecuador (ECU) - Quitos
Colombia (COL) - Bogota
Venezuela (VEN) - Caracas
Guyana (GUY) - Georgetown
Suriname (SUR) - Paramaribo
Panama (PAN) - Panama City
Costa Rica (COS) - San Jose
Nicaragua (NIC) - Managua
Honduras (HON) - Teguchigalpa
El Salvador (ELS) - San Salvador
Belize (LIZ) - Belmopan
Guatemala (GUT) - Guatemala City
Mexico (MEX) - Mexico City
USA (USE) - Washington
Canada (CAN) - Ottawa
Cuba (CUE) - Havana
Jamaica (JAM) - Kingstown
The Bahamas (BAH) - Nassau
Haiti (HEY) - Port au Prince
Dominican Republic (DOM) - Santo Domingo
Puerto Rico (PUR) - San Juan
St. Kitts and Nevis (KIT) - Basseterre
Antigua and Barbuda (ANT) - St. John's
Dominica (DIM) - Roseau
St. Lucia (LUS) - Castries
St. Vincent and the Grenadines (GRE) - Kingstown
Barbados (BAR) - Bridgetown
Grenada (GRE) - St. Georges
Trinidad and Tobago (TOB) -

 

166   Chile  Santiago  
167   Argentina  Buenos Aires  
168   Uruguay  Montevideo  
169   Paraguay  Asuncion  
170   Brasil  Brasilia  
171   Bolivia  La Paz/Sucre  
172   Peru  Lima  
173   Ecuador  Quito  
174   Colombia  Bogota  
175   Venezuela  Caracas  
176   Guyana  Georgetown  
177   Suriname  Paramaribo  
178   Panama  Panama City  
179   Costa Rica  San Jose  
180   Nicaragua  Managua  
181   Honduras  Tegucigalpa  
182   El Salvador  San Salvador  
183   Belize  Belmopan  
184   Guatemala  Guatemala City  
185   Mexico  Mexico City  
186   USA  Washington DC  
187   Canada  Ottawa  
188   Cuba  La Habana  
189   Jamaica  Kingston  
190   The Bahamas  Nassau  
191   Haiti  Port au Prince  
192   Dom. Republic  Santo Domingo  
193   S. Kitts and Nevis  Basseterre  
194   Antigua and Barbuda  St. John's  
195   Dominica  Roseau  
196   St. Lucia  Castries  
197   St. Vincent and the Grenadines  Kingstown  
198   Barbados  Bridgetown  
199   Grenada  St. George's  
200   Trinidad and Tobago  Port of Spain  

 

Learn all abbreviations (MOR, ALG, TUN) and decide on the main topic, for instance morbidity, algae, tuna. Find loci to represent this, for example graveyard, modern restaurant, sushi restaurant.
Make a story with at least ten stations/pegs, for example the abovementioned graveyard scene, and following with another example here for Algeria, 002, ALG, algae, modern restaurant:

Modern restaurant, places and/or events of mnemonic clip:

Entrance door with skull and smoke
Barside w/fancy drinks
Table with dry ice
Crazy waiter
Headphones
Chef
Live chicken
Nitrogen
Owner
Bill/check

I recommend you keep one location and at least one story line for information about the country itself. For ease of use choose topic one of each country as a deposit for country specific geographic information.
Morocco is a graveyard, and the first story is about the gravedigger and the open grave. Add ten pieces of data, like mentioned above, GDP, area, currency, year of liberation/foundation, etc.

Then, you can add different stories to he graveyard topic, as you like, or add elements to the first story, much the same thing only a story that develops dramatically like a US drama series directed by David Lynch, to give you a idea. Crazy characters, objects, actions, and events.

Then, find a graveyard you know from one city, either the city you live in or a city which you have grown up in. I say city but this could be a town, or a rural area as well. My first location is from the city of Bergen, Norway, where I grew up.
Whenever I want to memorize a list, for example, I can then use graveyard one from Bergen as one loci, and I still have the info on Morocco in the graveyard topic story.

Any images/visualizations I make from a graveyard in my natal city is completely separated from the graveyard story. So, not a problem in practice.
With this approach you get 1) extreme geographical knowledge , and 2) a 200 loci memory palace for lists you want to learn on the go.

 

Copyright (C) Sjur Midttun, 2024