S’porean man, 22, names exact spots in India by looking at map without border lines on quiz show

Maximilian Zeng, a 22-year-old Singaporean man, has wowed the socks off viewers of quiz show University Challenge by demonstrating his immense memory and knowledge of geography with his quick-fire answers to questions pertaining to maps.

He was on the Imperial College team that beat King’s College 235-50 in the long-running quiz show in January 2022.

His prowess in identifying correctly multiple capital cities and their corresponding states just by looking at a pin on what appears to be a random spot on the map of India devoid of state borders was on full display in one episode.

You can watch Zeng in action for 1 minute from the 7-minute mark:

What he did

The biochemistry student hit the buzzer a few seconds after surveying the map.

He answered: “Chennai, and Tamil Nadu.”

As a result of nailing the answer, his team got three more similar bonus questions.

He then correctly named all three locations:

– Kolkata, West Bengal

– Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh

– Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh

Reactions

The best responses to Zeng’s ability can be found on YouTube.

Some of the hilarious responses included: “You can drop Zeng in the middle of the Pacific, he’ll still know the way home”, as well as “Frodo would have an easier path to Mordor if Zeng was by his side…”

Loves maps and spends waking hours staring at them

According to an interview with CNA, which further thrust Zeng into the spotlight, he received his first world map when he was three and knew all countries and capitals by the time he was six.

He stares at a map for four hours each day, he said.

Zeng is a former Hwa Chong Institution student.

He added that “rote memorisation”, as is practised in the Singapore education system, can be beneficial for the purpose of a quiz like University Challenge.

He uses OpenStreetMap and accesses it all the time by clicking into it.

He said he hates Google Maps.

“I have very little of a social life. So I have a very restricted set of interests. I just think of maps all day,” he said.

He is in third year university.

Every match in University Challenge has a picture round and it would feature a map, and Zeng figured he can do well in such a quiz.

He is not studying geography at university level, as his interests lie in linguistics, anthropology, and language distributions.

Filming for the show has wrapped up.

Imperial College faces University of Reading, which is shown on Feb. 14.