Unacceptable how? I’d wager the vast majority of even highly-educated people would be unable to meet this challenge.
MUST/SIZE:
[ul]
[li]Canada[/li][li]America[/li][li]Russia[/li][li]China[/li][/ul]Due to size alone. At least know what the big blobs of color are.
MUST/IMPACT:
[ul]
[li]Iraq[/li][li]Iran[/li][li]Israel[/li][li]Afghanistan[/li][li]Pakistan[/li][li]Mexico[/li][/ul]Sheer geopolitical importance. The fact many of them are smooshed together and the last shares a border should make this easy.
MUST/HISTORY:
[ul]
[li]UK/Ireland[/li][li]France[/li][li]Germany[/li][li]Spain/Portugal[/li][li]Italy[/li][/ul]These countries had the biggest impact on our history for the last 500 years and they were all vital in the last 50.
As for ‘shoulds’, well, I think everyone should know at least what continent every country is on. We can’t afford to be geographically incontinent.
It’s the big blob in the dead center of Europe. It wears Denmark like a little scandahoovian hat. The fact it borders both France and Poland should tell you things about its history.
I guess I can’t visualize what you’re saying, but Spain is most of the Iberian peninsula (only it and a speck called Andorra touch France on the south) and Portugal hangs off the western edge, like a hungry little maritime nation should. The kind of nation that would sponsor crazy voyages to Africa and the New World. (Oh, and the very southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula is Gibraltar, which is British and serves mainly to cause the Royal Marines to accidentally invade Spain.)
Uzbekistan. That’s all you need to know. 
It is rapidly becoming a very small world, and nutcases in Uganda, Weganda or Theyganda can affect our daily lives very easily. It behooves any aware person to know, at the very least, where on the planet these little pipsquak nations are, if for no other reason than to gauge where the fallout will drift if we nuke them off said planet.
Obviously you are forgetting about all those annoying Stan countries.
Wait, wait. If it’s the average person ANY place in the world, then why is this list so Euro-Americancentric? Clearly the billions of people NOT in the West will have a different list for the “musts.”
The landmark is pointy, France sticks into Germany (or are we talking about an utterly unbordered map?).
It’s actually really easy to identify these countries:
Portugal
Spain
France
Germany
Poland
The Ukraine
Russia*
By drawing an arc starting in the left of Portugal (bottom left “tip” of the European Peninsula), that tops off around the Baltic (where Germany and Poland meet their upper corners), and ends around the Caspian sea.
*Come on, you could throw a DART at a map and probably ID Russia.
Also: 7 continents? I thought It was 6 now (didn’t they officially merge Europe and Asia into Eurasia or is it still one of those selective things where you can go either way?)
No, it’s that Europe is now a dwarf continent.
D&R
True this, its one of my biases. But you could substitute some of the “should” knows to the “must” knows depending on region.
These two lists are “pretty” interchangable.
One thing to note, part of the reason I chose the countries I chose is because if you were to see a map without names and were to base your labeling of each country solely on the borders, the ones I mentioned should be obvious.
I believe for a person who has not studied geography a little bit would confuse the location of China and possiby India as well.
I don’t WANT any Americans to be able to point out Holland on a map. Holland is the third exporter of agricultural produce in the world, if you count financial value, and we are also a major ex-colonial power. Belgium, South Africa, Surinam and Indonesia all have Dutch as first or second language. Yet all Americans who DO look us up on a map, are surprised we’re so VERY tiny, (the size of Massacuchets) and consequently they think we should tone it down a bit. 
Okay, we may be the size of Massachusets, but we’ve got about the population of New York.
Yeah, but how much of that is even legal here? 
This list is for Americans, not “anyone”.
your reply itself is still very biased. how can one possibly miss China or India? they’re so big! even on a map without labels you cannot miss India with its distinctive coastlines and China bordered with neighbours you can’t possibly mistake: Russia (it’s even bigger!); Mongolia sandwiched between the two; the islands of Korea, Japan and Taiwan sitting off the coast; Vietnam grabbing the coastline below China.
and Spain. why the love for Spain? what has it done in recent history that puts it so distinctively ahead of China? i understand that this is a US board* and am ok with terminology that defaults all and sundry to be Americans, but it’s not ok to *insist *on including everyone when you’re not actually doing so.
I am about 99% certain that I could name the right continent for any country you can name. Exact location? Maybe not, but for sure within a country or two.
I think that that should pass for the average citizen.
Tulips were legalised in 1947.
OK, make your own list.
Yeah. I’d be able to get through all of Europe at 100%, and all of the -stans and former U.S.S.R. countries (and even a bunch of disputed and not officially recognized territories like Transnistria), but once I hit Africa and some of Southeast Asia (and pretty much the entire Caribbean), I’m fucked. (And, looking at a map of Central America, I just realized I’d probably flunk that test, too.)
I can specifically locate every country in the world except those of the former Yugoslavia and the countries of west and central Africa. I would expect that anyone else should be able to do so as well.
Some territories and small island countries may be a problem for me as well.
Why would you expect things that are so manifestly not the case?
I mean, bully for you and all, but you seem to be getting along fine without the countries of west and central Africa. Plenty of people get along similarly fine without South America, and/or without eastern Asia, and/or whatever. Can you specifically locate every state in India? It’s just as useful…