Erm, what answer would you not have been surprised at? 
On the OP, is it possible your friend had confused Mississippi and Missouri?
Count your blessings. Here in New Mexico, we’re accustomed to people from other states not realizing we’re actually in the Union.
Good correction. I guess I just didn’t notice any land when I tried this with my globe. I should restate it: There’s a way you can orient a globe of the earth so that about all you can see is water. I finally got my globe down and tried to see if my memory was accurate – after checking your link – and decided that it wasn’t.
I’d vote for this and allow for the similar beginnings. Using that logic, there are other things Mississippi might get confused with:
Misanthrope
Misadventure
Miss America (although a few have been from there)
Mistake
Missed Appointment
Mister Lucky
I heard this from when my aunts moved down to New Mexico. Lots of people kept asking them “Is that in Mexico?” :smack:
I would have guessed North Carolina, because I always think Philly is further west than it is. But I bet most Americans would guess western Florida or Georgia. Even Alabama wouldn’t shock me as a guess. From grading high school geography quizes, it seems most of us think Pennsylvania is either Kentucky or Tennesee.
FWIW, it can be really fun and instructive to spend some quality time with an atlas, a globe, or a big map of the world. Whenever I’m waiting in the car while my wife does something that will take a little while, I whip out the atlas we keep in the car and start looking for things I didn’t know.
Some of the things to check out include:
- which cities and/or states are on the same latitude or the same longitude as your city/state?
- which interstates that run through or near your location go to (or near) cities that you didn’t know about?
- which big cities are within 100 miles, 200 miles, 300 miles from yours, in all directions?
Just that little bit of searching can make you much more geographically smart.