# What country am I in?

Divide the length of my name by one letter, then multiply by 11 to get four times my meaning.

What country am I in?

• This riddle is a Spain in the ass and I am Hungary! – Avigrail Jan 13 '15 at 9:27
• "12 letters" divided by "letter" gives me "12 s" which made me think I'm totally wrong with that! You should try to be more precisely next time :p – Avigrail Jan 26 '15 at 7:23
• @Avigrail - $\frac{12\:\mathrm{letters}}{\mathrm{one\:\:letter}} = 12$. I once knew a chemistry teacher who insisted on saying things like "5 metre", arguing that changing the measure didn't change the unit, so he might have agreed with you - but his approach is non-standard :-) – h34 Jan 26 '15 at 20:48
• Teacher or not, he sounds like a clever man to me ;) I think there is a problem with definitions for such riddles. But I'm sure your next riddle will be outstanding! – Avigrail Jan 26 '15 at 20:59
• @h34 is there any other solution than the one given by sunshine? if one was to set up a world wide treasure hunt this would be so good to use xD but it should only be possible to have 1 answer and nothing more so i would really like to know :P do you know if there is more than 1 answer? – Vincent Apr 14 '15 at 13:56

EDIT

Found it!

You are in:

Uruguay – the town of Treinta y Tres, which means thirty-three in Spanish (official language of Uruguay), and was deliberately named after the ’33 Orientales’ who founded Uruguay

Workings are basically the same as my previous answer:

Treinta y Tre has 12 letters, divide by one letter to get 12. Times 11 is 132, which is four times 33.

You are in:

Estonia. Specifically, the town of Elva.

Divide the length of my name by one letter

Length of Elva is 4 letters, divide by one letter to get 4 (without units)

then multiply by 11

to get 44

to get four times my meaning.

Meaning is eleven, because elva means eleven in Swedish (and possibly other languages, I don't know!)

• Brilliant answer! I would certainly have accepted it if elva meant "eleven" in Estonian. You are almost there. There is a town in another country where the meaning is deliberate in the local language. You are also the first answerer to go straight ahead and divide by a quantity consisting of measure and unit, rather than being held up by the mistaken idea that a denominator can only be a pure number - about which I was about to post a(nother) hint! – h34 Jan 14 '15 at 17:32
• Upvoted for Treinta y Tres. I don't think this puzzle has a unique answer even when interpreted exactly how the author intends (nothing against that although my much more specific puzzles are downvoted to negative because of this reason). – Quark Jan 15 '15 at 17:25
• Sunshine289 - You got it - well done! @Quark - have you got another answer that fits? Perhaps there are some other places in Latin America called "Treinta y Tres"? I was impressed with the answers "Estonia" (Elva) and "Angola" (Onze), but if someone said the meaning of the country name "Turkey" was a bird of the genus Meleagris they'd be mixing up form with meaning, even though the bird's name was derived from the country name. Anyway, if someone cooks a puzzle, that doesn't make it a bad puzzle! :-) Cf. Sam Loyd's bear hunter puzzle. – h34 Jan 15 '15 at 18:32
• This site lists eight towns named after numbers, all in the US. The only one on the list named after a number divisible by 11 is Eightyeight in Kentucky, but with 11 letters it doesn't work. – h34 Jan 15 '15 at 18:43
• No I just meant there seem to be requirements not stated in the puzzle such as elva not working because it's not the local language. There are a lot of hints scattered in the comments but if you just look at the puzzle it'd be quite hard/impossible to come up with Trienta y Tres, Uruguay. – Quark Jan 15 '15 at 20:17

Edit 2: Found another one that fits using your latest hints.

You are in:

The United States, more specifically you are the town of Eightyeight, Kentucky.

Divide the length of my name by one letter

In the town of Eightyeight, there is only one letter that doesn't have a pair (the y), divide the length into two so Eight y eight.

then multiply by 11

What it now looks like is eight times(x) eight (but the y is like the top left of an x so you need to divide the answer by two). Eight y eight is 64/2 which is 32. 32*11=352

to get four times my meaning.

352 divide by 4 is 88 which is the original word

This is probably not what you were looking for but please give me props for my skill in finding very closely fitting wrong answers.

(I'm hoping this/these answers will give me the gold icon you have :P)

I think I got it or I'm at least close? (or way off). You're in:

The country of hell (lol)

Divide the length of my name by one letter

Divide the length of your name by one letter, your name is h34 so the name by the one letter is 34, divide it so h3 / 4

then multiply by 11 to get four times my meaning

Multiply h3 by 11 gives you h311 with a 4 on the end. This gives you 4 times h311 which is the country you are in.

• If this isn't in I'll be surprised. You probably beat me to it. – warspyking Jan 10 '15 at 22:16
• When he said "my name" and "my meaning" I assumed he was being figurative. – warspyking Jan 10 '15 at 22:20
• Quark: +1 for the amusing answer, but nope, you're way off! :-) I'm not that self-centred! I is just standard riddlerese for the subject of the riddle. @warspyking: neither name nor meaning is used figuratively, and the answer is a literal country, a member of the UN. – h34 Jan 10 '15 at 22:46
• Hah I find it hilarious that I was so off yet the answer fit so well (seems to be a common theme lately). I'll continue thinking with that major hint. – Quark Jan 10 '15 at 22:49
• You're getting close, so +1, but the answer is not the US. I'll try not to give any more clues, because after this attempt I think it's going to be solved quite soon now. (I'd give you another +1 if I could, for teaching me the word props!) – h34 Jan 10 '15 at 23:39

You are in:

Angola, for you are Onze, a stream in Bengo province, Angola

Divide my length by one letter

The length of Onze is "4 letters", divide by "1 letter" to get 4. Units cancel as per @Sunshine289

Then multiply by 11

4 x 11 = 44

To get four times my meaning.

The meaning is therefore 11, and "onze" means 11 in Portuguese, the official language of Angola.

Thanks to @Sunshine289

• Another brilliant answer. I'm impressed that @Sunshine289 and you have found these places. But what does it mean for a placename to mean something? The intention has to be there. Otherwise the town of Reading in England could be said to 'mean' the act of looking at and interpreting text, which would be fine in a cryptic clue, but this puzzle is literal except for the personification. Only places deliberately named after numbers have names that literally 'mean' numbers. Quark found one but got 'divide' wrong. You and sunshine289 get 'divide' correct. Hint: the meaning is not necessarily 11. – h34 Jan 15 '15 at 11:51
• I'm assuming the name Onze is from an African language and that it's accidental that the word means 'eleven' in Portuguese. If the name was given to the stream in Portuguese, or it's a translation into Portuguese of an African word for 'eleven', then I will accept this answer! – h34 Jan 15 '15 at 11:55

Flag of Iran have 2 rows with 11 signs "Allahu Akbar", total 22. Are you in Iran?

If 4 times a meaning and is a multiple of 11, it means it could be 44, 88, ...

Obviously 4 the length divided by one number has to return a number. So let's run through some basic numbers:

4*11/4
8*11/4
12*11/4
16*11/4
20*11/4
24*11/4
28*11/4
32*11/4
36*11/4
40*11/4

--

So the general idea that I'm currently working with, is that his name has a number in word form somewhere inside it, and "dividing by one letter" means to split it so you can get that number. What's the chances of someone having twelve, sixteen, ..., forty in their name anyway? Even four or eight is unlikely, but that is what we will work with.

4*11/4 = 11
8*11/4 = 22

So what sort of meaning could 11 or 22 have? I'll think on this for a while, be back to you soon!

I'm almost positive the name is in one of these lists:

More Coming Soon!

Question for reference while editing:

Divide the length of my name by one letter, then multiply by 11 to get for times my meaning.

Old Theory

Left for educational purposes for future readers

However it says you have to divide by a letter first, you can't divide by a letter, so it has to be a number that represents a letter. Possibilities could be

A=1
B=2
...=...
Y = 25
Z = 26

Or ascii

A=65
B=66
...=...
Y=89
Z=90

And

a=97
b=98
...=...
y=121 z= 122

Which means that it could 4 times it's meaning could range from 11 to 122*11.

It is unclear to me how to narrow it down further without understand what "it" is and what the 4 times it's meaning refers to. It is possible it means that it's number is divisable by 4.

Following up on the idea that the letter times 11 can be divisable by 4

This narrows down the list to

D=4
H=8
L=12
P=16
T=20
X=24

Or Ascii:

D=68
H=72
L=76
P=80
T=84
X=88
d=104
h=108
l=112
p=116
t=120
x=124

Anybody else starting to notice a pattern here. If not lemme show you. D, H, L, P, T, X.

Step by step explanation

# name/letter*11/4=Meaning

So let's letter*11 has to be divisible by 4. Meaning letter HAS to be either D, H, L, P, T, or X (possibly lowercase)

So we need the meaning now don't we! Well, let's go ahead and multiply and divide the list shall we?

Meanings:

Ascii_T=231
Alph_T=55
Ascii_h=297
Alph_P=44
Alph_D=11
Ascii_p=319
Ascii_d=286
Alph_H=22
Ascii_L=209
Alph_X=66
Ascii_x=341
Ascii_H=198
Ascii_l=308
Ascii_P=220
Ascii_t=330
Ascii_X=242
Alph_L=33
Ascii_D=187

What could the meaning be? May be a while until I get back with more.

• This is good thinking, but you make a questionable jump and a second one too if I understand your drift correctly. If it doesn't get solved, I'll respond to your answer with a hint in a couple of days. – h34 Jan 10 '15 at 16:56
• Also @h34 Alrighht, sounds good, should I keep going or..? – warspyking Jan 10 '15 at 17:08
• @h34 Before I keep going, am I on the right track? I don't wanna go further without any clue if I'm simply throwing ideas at the wall for nothing. – warspyking Jan 10 '15 at 17:36
• I'm trying not to say too much, but representing each letter in the alphabet with a number, whether using ASCII or otherwise, isn't the right track. – h34 Jan 10 '15 at 17:38
• @h34 Well how on earth do you divide a number by a letter -_- – warspyking Jan 10 '15 at 18:08

Length("h34") = 3

3 divided by one letter ("h", "3" or "4") results in
3/3 = 1 or 3/4.

Times 11 is either
11 or 33/4 which equals 4 times the meaning.

11 = 4x or 33/4 = 4x giving me x either is
11/4 or 33/16

The alphabet tells me K/D(not defined) or G/P (Guadeloupe).

KK/D(Kempen/Germany) or CC/AF (Somwhere in Afghanistan).

I have no idea what to do now :)

• If you divide h34/h, that gives you just 34. Times 11 is 374. Divide by 4 is... 93.5 lol which has nothing to do with the meaning as far as I can tell. I just wanted to point out that "the length of my name" could be "the entirety of my name, which can be divided by the variable h. – EFrog Jan 13 '15 at 9:54
• @EFrog Very good idea! I also thought about the literal length of "my name" = 7 or "name" = 4. But what the hell to do with that :D – Avigrail Jan 13 '15 at 10:03
• If you're following on h34 being the "I" then "my meaning" may actually refer to the meaning of h34 (a helicopter among other things). And the country could literally be where h34 (the user, the helicopter, etc) is from. But idk. – EFrog Jan 13 '15 at 10:08
• Medic please! O.o – Avigrail Jan 13 '15 at 10:14
• Yeah after h34's comments on my answer, I thought maybe "I" was a city or landmark whose name was a number with an additional letter (say, "Sevren"), that when divided by a letter (r), gives "seven". But no number times 11/4 will ever give you 4 times itself. – EFrog Jan 13 '15 at 10:30

Ok so I don't know the answer but my line of thinking seems different than other posters, so I figure I should post it.

The first thing that struck me was that the riddle says to divide by a letter. This is only possible in two ways as far as I know:

1) The letter is a variable, say x. 2) The "letter" is actually a Roman numeral.

As the first option seems ridiculous in this context, I'm assuming the second. Given that it has been said that "divide by one letter" is somehow different from "divide by a letter", that leads to one of two more conclusions:

1) This is literal. You are meant to divide by the letter for one, or I. 2) This means "divide by one of my letters", meaning the country name contains a Roman numeral (I, V, X, L, D, C, M).

I'm not sure which of those is correct.

This line of reasoning led me to think that it's possible that the number 11 is actually referring to

the Roman numeral II, or 2.

That could be wrong though.

The last bit of the riddle is what really confuses me though. "My meaning" implies

the meaning of the country itself. I looked into the etymologies of country names and found a few that reference numbers such as Bahrain which means "two seas" (which is an interesting one because 2 C's or CC actually means 200 in Roman numerals), but I couldn't make any of them fit.

So like I said, I can't at all figure out a solution to the riddle, but I thought a fresh perspective may spark something for someone else.

Edit: It's also possible that "multiply by 11" means

Take the previous number and attach XII (x11) to get "four times my meaning". So if the first half of the riddle yields MMC, for example, then that "times 11" would be MMCXII.

• If x is 37 metres and y is one metre, what's x/y? And the riddle doesn't say I am a country; I am something that's in a country. (Roman numerals have nothing to do with this riddle, but what you say about them has given me an idea for another one!) – h34 Jan 12 '15 at 19:08
• Does this country have more than one name? – Daniil Agashiyev Jan 13 '15 at 0:10
• The answer is the normal name of a country, what most people know it as. If you get what "I" am, you will have no problem getting the name of the country "I" am in. There are no tricks about e.g. Australia officially being the Commonwealth of Australia, or Egypt the Arab Republic of Egypt, or some people mistakenly calling the Netherlands 'Holland' or the US 'America'. – h34 Jan 13 '15 at 1:40