US people and geography

[Karin]

well... long time is known, most in Europe, that US people (maybe whole America) has really miserable knowledge about the geography in the world... most about the countries in world.

Its not a fiction by me, but real fact which I and many other can see everyday.

The most fresh, after the bomb attack in Boston, where people think the attackers where from OUR COUNTRY! Our news are filled with screenshots from twitter, where people want a war with us or invasion. And why? cause they have really no idea, how look the world.
Some information said, the attackers where from Chechen, but dont know why, many US confuse it with Czechoslovakia (which btw. dont exist 20years!) or with Czech or Slovak.

Well, maybe its sound really funny this whole thing... but its doesn't make really good name for USA (which was never good) and really make some people here worried. Really don't understand, how in the era of internet and Google, can happen something like this.

Really would like to know, what you think about it.

[Lili4ever]

i don't think we are any better than americans. Sure we know our continent, but how many US states could an average european name ? Could you point at map where is Wyoming ?

My danish cooworker could not understand how could i travel from Lithuania to Denmark by ferry. I had to show her a fucking map wich she must have seen first time in her life.

[Karin]

well, I dont tell I know every country in Europe, but most yea... most have problem with Latvia and Lithuania.

And Im talking about a country, and not states in the country... so point of my post is, how can people confuse 1 country with other, which does not exists 20years or it separated in 2 countries?! Its like you would confuse US with Mexico.

I know we are small country, and in Europe are many others... we are in EU, NATO and many others world organisations... in the internet era and GOOGLE MAPS its for me really big question.

[Lili4ever]

most of the US states are bigger than a lot of countries in the Europe. You just do not realize how actually big is US. So i am really not surprised if people don't know all the countries and history events. There is just so much stuff back at home. I bet some people in some Asian country can't understand how can you not know their country. Ignorance is universal

[Karin]

Originally Posted by Lili4ever

most of the US states are bigger than a lot of countries in the Europe. You just do not realize how actually big is US. So i am really not surprised if people don't know all the countries and history events. There is just so much stuff back at home. I bet some people in some Asian country can't understand how can you not know their country. Ignorance is universal

well... but possible unlike of the other countries, we learned about each country in the world, more or less, but but we were...

if US would confuse your country with another on other side of planet, and would like to make a invasion, you wouldnt be surprised how could they make such stupid thing? :P

[SpanishFan]

Most americans think Spain is near Mexico and not in Europe, but that does not bother me at all, it is quite funny in a way.
About them not knowing a lot about geography, I could challenge the people who claim that to go and place in a map Costa Rica, Togo, Bahrein or Laos.

What I would find more interesting than geography knowledge, is the american attitude towards the rest of the world, in terms of going outside and visiting places. Very often I read about the high number of usa population that don't have a passport, or never fly away of their country.
I am sure it is in part due to a geographic thing. Living in Spain, France, etc... you have a lot of different cultures just two or three hours away by plane: Morocco(African culture), Italy(Roman culture) UK (Anglo culture), Greece(ancient greek culture), Germany, the Balcans...etc.

This is not as easy living in america, where you need a looong flight to reach all those different places. Apart from this geographic issue, I am sure there will be some other political or cultural reasons.

If you add to that a high sense of patriotism then I think you have the explanation of why some people can have this (right or wrong) feeling of americans not being that interested about the rest of the world.

Saying that they don't know about geography it is way too simplistic and even offensive for some IMHO. We could say a few "not very good" things about any country in the world, but that would be wrong and simplistic as I said.
But discussing the reasons of such claims can make for a good debate though.

[Jake04]

Don't worry, Karin. If we decided to invade Chechnya, I'm sure our military would use "Google map or Google earth!"

[Karin]

Originally Posted by Jake04

Don't worry, Karin. If we decided to invade Chechnya, I'm sure our military would use "Google map or Google earth!"

yea, I saw it when George Bush came here... and told he came to Slovenia, and asked wheres the sea

[Jordy]

Originally Posted by Lili4ever

i don't think we are any better than americans. Sure we know our continent, but how many US states could an average european name ? Could you point at map where is Wyoming ?

Well, as an example... if you ask me to name all the US states, sure I'll forget about some, but if you tell me the name of the state, I know it is one of the US states, and with some not so well known states I have at least rough idea where it is. And the same goes to every country in the world, in school we learned about every single country and we had to know where every country is. Even Costa Rica, Togo, Bahrein and Laos... and even if I didn't know, I'd at least look up for some informations if I wanted to make some offensive post about that country for some reason.

The problem is, that most of the people don't bother to check for the facts, they just believe they know the facts and then they make posts on twitter where they want an immediate invasion to Czechoslovakia... which doesn't exist, but even if it did it's very offensive to us. It's like if someone from Georgia made bomb attack in Europe, and we all would start with posts that we want to nuke the USA... without even checking the fact, that it's actually different Georgia...

[Karin]

here we goo



+ milions of tweets in the same ways

and then reaction of Czech embassy in US http://www.mzv.cz/washington/en/czec...the_czech.html


so US world knowledge + medias are making really big bubble, and now its not fun ...

and now dont tell, it shouldn't bother me