Geo4Kids (http://geo4kids.com), a developer of educational geographic software, has released Countries and Capitals, an interactive world atlas intended for learning the locations of the world countries and the names of their capital cities. It's compatible with Mac OS X, Windows and Linux systems.

The program features colorful maps of all six continents and also offers a challenging quiz mode where the user needs to guess either the location of a specific country or the name of the country by its capital. At the end of each quiz session, the user sees the quiz statistics and can identify his or her weak areas. If the task seems to be too hard, the user can click the compass in the lower left corner of the screen to see a tip.



Since the product is primarily intended for children, it´s extremely easy to use, says Andrew Steinberg, a project manager at Geo4Kids. The user can see the name of a country, its capital and flag simply by placing the mouse cursor over its image on the map. Such countries as the US, Germany, Australia and Canada can be explored on a lower level; clicking them will open detailed maps of states, lands, provinces or territories.



Countries and Capitals can be purchased for US$17.95; a demo is available for download. Purchasing a license removes the limitations of the trial version and entitles the user to free technical support by email and free upgrades to new versions of the program.