All (reasonably educated) people should be able to point out all countries on an unlabelled, but bordered, map, with the following general regions as possible exceptions.
The Caribbean (other than a few major players or notables such as Cuba and Haiti).
The small South Pacific island groups.
Parts of Eastern Europe, you know the place I’m talking about :p, East of Germany, west of Russia. (other than a few major notables like Poland etc.)
Central to western-coast Africa.
Parts of Western Asia (The Arabian penninsula). (Other than the notables in current world affairs)
The smaller countries in the meso-americas (other than the notables such as Panama).
The south-east asian countries and islands beneath China.
I think that’s reasonable and not ethnocentric. Ideally, people SHOULD know a lot more, but I wouldn’t EXPECT people to know more and if they did I would assume that there was a reason for it, such as that’s where they come from, or they’ve been there, or they have a special interest in that area.
*Derleth, you mentioned Canada as a MUST, but not Australia? Seriously, it’s just ice and hockey players there, right?
Its just that looking at South America for about 15 seconds leads you to realize Brazil and Argentina.
Spain is usually the first country one encounters when arriving to Europe from America (along with Portugal).
I suppose you could argue that one could fly the oppsite direction and claim one of those countries is the first European ones you’ll face. Still, I think Spain is distinguishable.
I’m not saying most people would not be able to locate China and India at all, I just happent to see the other countries as being (a little) more obvious geographicaly.
I think people should seek to know as many countries as possible, especially the big world players and anywhere the US is currently invading. Seriously - how can you not find China and Russia on a map? They’re huge and they’re in the news constantly!
I usually do pretty well on geography tests although I tend to transpose Peru and Chile for some reason, and likewise Burma/Myanmar and Thailand. And Central Africa gets a bit tricky, especially now that there are two Congos.
In my defense, however, I can name all 50 US state capitals.
I’ll defend Spain. It had a huge empire and pretty much defined the age of navigation; there’s a reason most of South and Central America speaks Spanish. Further, one of the most significant wars of the 20th Century, the Spanish Civil War, occurred in Spain. It let both Axis and Allied powers have a taste of modern warfare in the age of the tank and aeroplane, test new tactics and generally practice for WW2.
Like this, you mean? I’d point out that North as “top” is merely a historical cartographic convention because the original mapmakers were from that neck of the woods: the Earth has no “up”.
And moose. Don’t forget about moose. (And not knowing where Australia is would make you look quite ignorant in my eyes. It should have been on the same list as Canada.)
How about Central Asia and getting all of the 'stans straight? Kazakhstan is the big one and I generally think big countries are useful as landmarks, but do you really expect the knowledge of which one’s Uzbekistan and which one’s Tajikistan to be all that interesting? Going a bit to the west, picking out Georgia recently got useful for a little while but flare-ups like that seem to be flukes in a region that generally keeps to itself.
How about this: Should people know where Kurdistan is? Puntland? How about the Republic of Lakotah? There are a number of de facto independent, disputed, and aspiring countries in the world. How many of them should the average person be expected to know about?
The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Portugal have changed borders noticeably since, let’s be charitable here, 1500 A.D. Not that I don’t think they shouldn’t be findable by any Westerner who’s ever studied history, but their borders have changed a lot, even if you restrict yourself to what we could call the “mainlands” of each of them.
I have been able to place every country in each continent with 100% accuracy and I can also name the capital of every country in the world. I can fill in each country on a blank world map. The only exception I make these days is Oceania. At one point in time, I could do that as well.
This has gotten me nowhere, but it is a cool party trick. For me, it’s more of a hobby than something I think everyone should know.
Now if you can get to the cartagropher level on that site, I will bow down to you and call you the Perfect Geography Master.
i understand that it’s your opinion Frustrated Wonderer, and phrased as such it would have been an interesting poll. however, you’re saying that people MUST know certain countries based on your personal perceptions and travel itinerary… (it should take way less than 15 seconds to locate China or India. )
the same or more could be said of China.
frankly while i think i share the same bias, as i would find it curious if a random person on the street were to identify Spain and not China; i certainly do not expect the same of everyone, especially not those on the other side of the planet.
on preview: dammit Mojo Pin! :o
I used to keep a large world map on my dining room wall when my kids were still at home. I remember somebody visiting and saying with a bit of a sneer, “nice decor”. My response was to call one of my kids into the room and tell them to show our guest where Brunei was, which he immediately pointed out on the map. I asked my guest if he was able to do that and if he would like to engage any one of my four children in a geography contest. He was suitably impressed and a bit chagrined.
They came by their geographical knowledge because whenever they wanted to go outside, I would require them to find a country or a city on the map prior to departing. Not knowing how your world fits together is a serious liability.
I thought the game was great - but that map is way too freakin’ small. I got to level 6 with a traveler IQ of 94 on the first go. I was pretty close in most instances. I was way off with Mount Everest (I knew the blob on top of China was Mongolia, and it wasn’t there, but I forgot that Nepal was close to India) and The Seychelles (I thought they were off Spain).
Regarding the OP - simply because of the shapes and sizes:
Greenland
Australia
Antarctica
Importance and impact on the world:
USA
China
Russia
UK
Japan
India
Beyond those, I think you’re stretching. Canada, Germany, South Africa, Brazil are all very important nations. But it’s hard for me to imagine that people from all corners of the planet would necessarily know exactly where they are on the map. (Okay, if you figure that South Africa is the southernmost tip of the continent of Africa, you’re cooking with gas.)
And I say this as a professor that teaches history!
But if we are asking people to place these places on a map we are assuming they don’t know much about…stuff.
So I doubt that people that stuggle with the mentioned countries would care **too **much about the history in determining the location of them, although it is an aspect that helps.
So you are saying that Namibia is more important to know than Poland? OK, I see on edit you made an exception for Poland, but I would still argue that Eastern Europe, all of the Middle East and Central America are more important to Westerners than most of Africa, including Namibia, Tanzania, Angola, etc.
That’s really not true. London, Paris, Frankfurt, and, to a lesser extent, Dublin are where virtually all of the flights from the U.S. to Europe connect.
Seriously, it’s just ice and hockey players there, right?
(And not knowing where Australia is would make you look quite ignorant in my eyes. It should have been on the same list as Canada.)