Who Needs Geography?!

A lot of you are probably busy studying for their midterms right now (or some lucky people might have already finished them). Either way, I think it is time for a more humorous post :) On Friday, we had an English exam for which we also had to study the names and locations of the 50 American states. Last week I came across a survey in which Americans were asked to fill in countries’ names on a blank European political map.  Since I (like most Austrians) had to start memorizing these countries in primary school, I found some of the responses hilarious:

"affordable vacation"

Austria is as big as Germany!! Nice try...

However, to be fair, I have to show the other side of the coin as well… because let’s face it – how many Europeans would succeed in correctly locating all the American states? If I had not had to study them for our recent exam, I would not have been able to do so. So let’s take a look at a survey that tested the Brits' knowledge of US geography:

I hope all of you had a good laugh at one or the other picture. However, I would like to finish this post by thinking about what the gaps in the survey-takers’ knowledge actually tell us. They mirror part of our economical and political reality. While most people, for example, were able to identify powerful and geographically large countries like Germany or France, only few could tell apart the former Soviet satellite states. On the other hand, many British people could locate California or Florida correctly (states that gained a lot of fame through movies) while the Midwest, or “flyover country“ as it is called, remained a complete mystery to them. However, I do not think the smaller countries are any less important.

Come to think of it, I bet neither a lot of Europeans, nor Americans would succeed in identifying African states. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that most high school graduates know the Pythagoras’ theorem by heart but don’t know a lot about the location of countries on other continents? I mean, those who have to deal with countries on other continents because of their jobs or for personal reasons, will have to extend their geographical knowledge sooner or later anyway. Still, I think it would not hurt to be a little more attentive to what the world actually looks like ;)