Cape Verde Maze: Solve All Ten Islands of the World Cup's Biggest Underdog

Ten islands, one path

Cape Verde is the story of the 2026 World Cup: a nation of barely 500,000 people that held Spain to 0-0, drew 2-2 with Uruguay, and became the smallest country ever to reach the knockout stage. Their home is just as remarkable — ten volcanic islands scattered in the Atlantic off West Africa.

We turned the whole archipelago into a single continuous maze. Sea-bridge corridors connect every island, so one unbroken path runs from Santo Antão in the northwest all the way to the finish on Boa Vista.

What you'll pass along the way

• Mindelo's colorful harbor on São Vicente — Cape Verde's cultural capital
• The salt flats of Sal — bright white against the sand
• Pico do Fogo — the 2,829 m volcano that gives Fogo island its name
• Cidade Velha's fort on Santiago — the oldest European settlement in the tropics
• A morna guitar near Brava — for Cesária Évora, the barefoot diva
• A sea turtle on Boa Vista, one of the world's great nesting sites

Difficulty

Medium — the shortest solution runs 439 maze cells, but the island bridges force long detours if you pick the wrong crossing. Generated with a seeded depth-first-search algorithm and verified solvable by breadth-first search.

Solution

Scroll only when you surrender:

Print it

Part of our World Cup 2026 dark horse maze series. For classroom use, print freely. Publishing it in a book or product? That's covered by the Commercial Publishing License. Or make your own shaped maze from any image.