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Old 01-06-2014, 05:34 AM
 
Location: Sweden
23,862 posts, read 71,225,081 times
Reputation: 18600

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Alex Trebek: Americans are Woefully Ignorant When it Comes To Geography - YouTube
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Old 01-06-2014, 07:51 AM
 
545 posts, read 861,800 times
Reputation: 642
Quote:
Originally Posted by KathrynAragon View Post
Hey, this big stupid American knows where Afghanistan and Tunisia are on a map too....

And I've met many a European who thought that on their trip to the US, they could visit NYC, then take a two day road trip (stopping at interesting sights along the way) and be in San Francisco or Seattle on the third day. And that's no lie.
That's more a problem with time and distances. Because we almost never drive more than a day in Europe (or we take the plane/train), we are quite bad at assessing the time it would take for a very long trip. American are probably, in average, better at this.
I think Europeans are better in geography in average. Living in smaller countries mean, most of the time, more interest in foreign lands and more international news coverage as well.

@burgler09
The "they don't even know where mississipi is" argument is tiresome. Even if the majority of Europeans would struggle to locate it correctly, they would mostly know it's an American state.
But if I tell you : Mato Grosso, Primorye or Bayankhongor, can you locate them ? I couldn't. And they are bigger than Mississipi. Poitou Charantes, Mecklenburg or North Yorkshire ? Yeah, you don't give a damn about those. And seriously most people feel the same about American states. Why ? Because they are absolutely irrelevant internationally. I can book a trip to Mississippi with zero interaction from something or someone from there. While your federal government would know everything about this. And I'm 100% sure the USA's subdivisions are the best known from foreigners.
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Old 01-06-2014, 08:01 AM
 
Location: Tricity, PL
61,171 posts, read 85,998,837 times
Reputation: 130885
Quote:
Originally Posted by KathrynAragon View Post
And I've met many a European who thought that on their trip to the US, they could visit NYC, then take a two day road trip (stopping at interesting sights along the way) and be in San Francisco or Seattle on the third day. And that's no lie.
^^^ They are just driving faster
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Old 01-06-2014, 08:06 AM
 
22,923 posts, read 15,368,343 times
Reputation: 16962
Quote:
Originally Posted by Magnatomicflux View Post
I decided to sit on the side. But I don't have any beer at work.
WORK!! There's that four letter word again.

Americans are no worse than anyone else but given there are over 300 million of them the chances are that when that microphone or camera gets shoved into the face of an unsuspecting person it could be that person with less than a stellar familiarity with the worlds geography.

Give 'em a break. How many of ALL Canadians could name the various countries of Europe or Africa and position them accurately on a map?
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Old 01-06-2014, 09:58 AM
 
2,887 posts, read 5,108,748 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by markovian process View Post
Once in a while, I hear this brought up a lot, especially when a major news media outlet mislabels a country on a map, or when American students are compared to others.

But do you think this is really fair? Is this stereotype really true, if you compare Americans to the world? I can see how maybe well-traveled Europeans who are surrounded by other nations know more about them than citizens of a bigger country that travels less on average, but I find it hard to believe that the majority of Asians or Africans know that much more about world geography than Americans, considering that many countries still don't have as much schooling. How about to other Western countries?
I have yet to see anyone answer the OP's question (though I'd really like to see the data on that one) -- I hate to be Captain Obvious but "Americans are bad at geography" does not imply "Americans are worse than xxxxx at geography".
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Old 01-06-2014, 10:02 AM
 
2,887 posts, read 5,108,748 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JedlaRoche View Post
That's more a problem with time and distances. Because we almost never drive more than a day in Europe (or we take the plane/train), we are quite bad at assessing the time it would take for a very long trip. American are probably, in average, better at this.
Doesn't knowledge of geography include knowledge of distances?

Quote:
Originally Posted by JedlaRoche View Post
I think Europeans are better in geography in average. Living in smaller countries mean, most of the time, more interest in foreign lands and more international news coverage as well.
That's a logical argument but I would like to see some hard data to prove it.
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Old 01-06-2014, 01:24 PM
 
Location: M I N N E S O T A
14,799 posts, read 21,391,524 times
Reputation: 9263
No, people just love to complain and whine about Americans for some reason....
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Old 01-06-2014, 01:55 PM
 
6,459 posts, read 8,126,190 times
Reputation: 5491
Some funny questions from American tourists in Norway:

Is that Denmark? The person was pointing at Nesoddtangen (6 km / 3 mi) from the Oslo City Hall.

An older tourist showing a picture of a relative: I need help to find this person (in a country of 5 mill people). Good luck!

An older tourist insisting to buy a bus tour on the fjord

An old lady wanting to visit "The Norwegian Waterfalls". Which one?
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Old 01-06-2014, 02:14 PM
 
Location: Vancouver
18,489 posts, read 15,363,572 times
Reputation: 11929
Quote:
Originally Posted by KathrynAragon View Post
Hey, this big stupid American knows where Afghanistan and Tunisia are on a map too....

And I've met many a European who thought that on their trip to the US, they could visit NYC, then take a two day road trip (stopping at interesting sights along the way) and be in San Francisco or Seattle on the third day. And that's no lie.
We get the same about Canada…from pretty well everyone. Several times while in France I've had people ask me why I don't speak French if I'm from Canada ( Quebec is Canada to many of them ). When I say that I don't speak French for the same reason they don't speak a central African language. They look at me like I'm nuts, until I explain that the distance from Vancouver in english speaking Canada is the same distance as Paris to central Africa…well some get it, some refuse to believe Canada is that big.

@Magnatomicflux….not on the sidelines…but still sipping that beer.
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Old 01-06-2014, 02:19 PM
 
1,600 posts, read 1,877,008 times
Reputation: 2065
I don't know, many videos on Youtube like showing that but it's known how inaccurate they are (and they could have interviewed other 100 people who knew what they were asking for).
As for Europeans, it is likely that about European and North African and Middle Eastern we are better because of our proximity with these aforementioned lands: I can point out nearly every big/medium sized city and I have a wide knowledge of history and geography (mostly due to my interest in these subjects) but I can barely indicate 20 out of 50 states of the US (although I know whether they are a US states or not lol).
Americans instead will undeniably known much more than me in terms of US geography and history.
On the other hand, we are speaking about 500 millions of Europeans and 330 millions of Americans so the topic is, to say the least, "huge".
Maybe it's true in the US nowadays there's no interest towards intellectualism or culture; hence it might be true that nowadays Europeans are more accustomed to learn,read and write but it's hard to give a definitive and proper judgment on this matter without being aware of massive amount of data regarding these situations.
I think we should all look at the context: Europeans are far more prone to learn foreign languages (maybe except English native speakers) because they have to in order to interact with people in other countries: I can speak Italian (native language), English and French (on a medium level), German and Hungarian.
This not because I am a genius (I wish I were lol) but because of the whole situation of Europe I'm more likely to study foreign languages.
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