Where in the World Is the Best at Solving Heardle?

If only Dr. Seuss were around to see it. Inspired by Wordle, developers have hurtled a gaggle of verbal puzzles, from Absurdle to Nerdle, via Birdle and BRDL. (Yes, the last two are bird name guessing games.)

But perhaps the most popular Wordle spin-off is not word-based at all. Heardle takes the classic phone-in radio game of ‘guess the intro’ and adds a Wordle-themed spin: you’re given the first second of a pop song and have six tries to get it right. Unlike Wordle, you get a new clue (more intro) with every wrong guess, whether you were close or not.

Heardle reached 1.75 million daily views within its first three weeks, according to the game’s pseudonymous British inventor Nigel Heardle (sounds like a real British person to us). This means that the game’s playership is ripe for evaluation. Having revealed the cities and countries that are best at Wordle, WordTips has now analyzed thousands of geotagged tweets to find each location’s average Heardle score.

First up are the top 20 countries – scroll on for the top cities and states, and a ranking of the most difficult to guess Heardle songs.

Key Findings

• Ireland is the best country in the world at Heardle, with an average guess rate of 1.73.
• Wolverhampton is the top UK city at Heardle, getting it in 1.62.
• Nashville is the best “Music City” in the U.S., with an average Heardle score of 1.74.
• Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit is the easiest Heardle song so far, with users nailing it in an average of 1.13 guesses.

Ireland is World Heardle Champion

Ireland is the country with the best Heardle players, guessing the correct song in an average of 1.73 turns. The land of U2 and Enya (and Boyzone) has considerable pop heritage and is also good at “-rdle” games, boasting an average Wordle score of 3.87 guesses, according to our previous study.

European countries account for six of the ten top countries for Heardle. Venezuela is in fourth place with an average of 1.87 guesses – fewer than the UK, U.S., or Canada. The U.S. has the most data to pull from, with 16,356 Heardle result tweets at the moment of analysis and an average score of 1.94 guesses.

Delaware’s Heardle Players are Best in the U.S. (and the World)

Perry Como once sang, “What did Delaware?” and today we can provide an updated answer: Dela wore a proud smile; that’s what Dela wore! The average Heardle score in the diamond state is an astonishing 1.46. That’s fewer guesses than any other state, city, or country in our study.

Dublin is the World’s Capital City of Heardle

Ireland is the top country at Heardle, and its capital, Dublin, is the top global city, with an average score of 1.72 guesses. Even more appropriately, Nashville – known as “Music City, U.S.A.” – is in second place, making it America’s top city for the intro-guessing game.

Nashville, Austin, Atlanta Are the Top U.S. Cities for Heardle

In addition to the U.S. number one city Nashville, the second and third top cities also have notable music heritage. Austin, the Texas home of the SXSW festivals, is in second place. Atlanta is known for its hip-hop outfits, R&B acts, and… The Black Crowes. Plus, more lately, the fictional rapper Paper Boi. The city is the heart of Georgia’s music scene and the third best U.S. city at Heardle.

Wolverhampton and Two Scottish Cities Are UK’s Best at Heardle

It’s only a matter of time until Spaceman by Wolverhampton’s Babylon Zoo is Heardle track of the day – it’s one of those one-hit wonders that everybody knows. Meanwhile, Wolverhampton’s Heardle players don’t need the home advantage since the Midlands city is UK number one with an average of 1.62 guesses. Now, it’s only a matter of time until the Jurassic Coast landmark Durdle Door releases its own viral game, Durdle, where you have to guess the fossil.

Hometown of k.d.lang is Canada’s Capital of Heardle

Canada has an average guess rate that’s just 0.1 better than that of the U.S. But Canada’s top Heardle cities are seriously dragging things up for the stragglers. Only the top five cities identify the Heardle within two guesses. The Alberta city of Edmonton – the hometown of k.d.lang – is also home to Canada’s best Heardle players, who name the tune in an average of 1.63 guesses.

Canberra is Australia’s Best City at Both Heardle and Wordle

Australians are among the world’s best Wordle players, but the country comes three-quarters of the way down the league table for Heardle. Canberra is the national number one city for both ‘sports’ – guessing Heardles in 1.91 and Wordles in 3.58. We found only seven cities with significant data for Heardle play in Australia, so perhaps the results will improve when the game gains popularity.

Heardle’s First Month of Songs, Ranked by Difficulty

You don’t need to be a musicologist to twig the jangly upbeat guitar of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit (it seems like most people got it in one). It was the easiest song to guess in the first month of Heardle. But the quiet opening moments of Use Somebody make the Kings of Leon hit more difficult – Twitter users report a 3.14 on average. Likewise, there is some indistinct “studio business” before the telltale bassline of Valerie by Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse, making it the second-toughest song with a 2.97 average.

WordTips loves a brain game to enliven quiet moments and keep the mind sharp. Heardle adds some light entertainment to the mix – perfect when the day’s Wordle is so easy you don’t even need our Wordle word finder to help you. Meantime, with no Wordle and Heardle for another 24 hours, you’ll find us playing Contexto or Crosswordle…

METHODOLOGY AND SOURCES

We pulled all Geotagged tweets where people had shared their Heardle scores by isolating tweets with the Heardle score sharing format (#Heardle + #HeardleNumber).

Only cities with more than 100,000 population globally were considered. In the same terms, only the top 1,000 cities in the U.S. were considered.

We discarded tweets that did not guess the song, as well as tweets without a score.

Due to the fact that a BTS Heardle version popped up while carrying on the data gathering, we also filtered out every tweet containing the word "BTS."

On the states map, Alaska and Wyoming have been left out due to insufficient data.

To calculate the Song Ranking, we searched for all tweets with "Heardle" since their first edition - cleaning the results in the way described above.

The data was collected in March 2022.