# Geographic Knowledge **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 11, 2004, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-knowledge/233604 "2004-03-11T01:48:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-knowledge/233604/21 "2004-03-11T11:22:51Z")
I’m not saying we spent all semester on it but we did spend a week or two on it in 7th grade. I very vaguely recall learning something about Texas geography when we lived there while I was in the 6th and 5th. I remember nothing of 4th grade but I bet we did then as well, but that’s a function of my own poor memory. I bet we did learn some since at least 2nd or 3rd grade. It seems like something teachers would like to teach. One would think practicality would explain why. We’d learn about the place that would play the the most important role in our lives. And we’d get it along with Hawaiian history. For American history we’d learn a lot of American geography. For world history, which I’ll admit was far too Anglocentric, we’d learn some European Geography and a bit from the rest of the world. Concerning geography I can’t really blame them. It’s not that important. History, sociology, that’s what’s important. That the capital of the UK is named London or that the Thames flows eastward doesn’t mean anything. Those are just things that are easy to memorize and test on. When I took geography in college, a course I took just for fun because I thought it was interesting, we did spend an equal amount of time on each continent in the world. The names of various features was a minor part though, mostly we learned about the people and a brief piece about their history. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-knowledge/233604/22 "2004-03-11T15:25:40Z")
Well so far I’m the worst. (that would post) US Canada 58 Latin America 16 Europe 20 Russia NAB 4 Monsoon Asia 14 Mid East N Africa 19 SSA 5 Total 136 or 63% My school globe was bought in the 50’s, yeah that’s it! ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-knowledge/233604/23 "2004-03-11T15:55:00Z")
Surely I’m not THIS stupid…I gave up entirely on America when I got to Delaware…and I’d hoped to get full marks at least on EUROPE, but no, Slovenia had other ideas :mad: ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-knowledge/233604/24 "2004-03-11T15:59:28Z")
> [@Miss Gretchen](#): > > Something seems a little funny on the GeoQuizes part, apparently the largest Canadian city on the Great Lakes is Pakistan… 😕 Heh heh I found that too…apparently Cape Horn is in Ethiopia, Anchorage borders the Aral Sea, and Monaco is in Africa…whooooosh ---
**Author:** ![Einmon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Einmon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Einmon)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-knowledge/233604/25 "2004-03-11T17:47:16Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > Well so far I’m the worst. That’s only cause I’m not going to post my abysmal results. Apparently I can be glad to find home every night after work. Wherever home might be, globally speaking. The shame, the shame! ---
**Author:** ![threeorange](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@threeorange](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threeorange)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-knowledge/233604/26 "2004-03-11T20:15:45Z")
USA & Canada 62/62 Latin America 25/25 Europe 30/30 Former USSR 12/15 -Except for Kazakhstan (the big one) the -stans confused me. Also, a careless click on Azerbaidjan when they asked for Georgia Asia 20/20 Middle East/North Africa 22/22 Sub-Saharan Africa 38/42 -I correctly identified Gambia but clumsily missed it with the mouse and clicked on Senegal instead. Also transposed Rwanda/Burundi and Swaziland/Lesotho. I think perhaps I’ve finally found my area of expertise. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/47e85d/32.png) [@Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Lance_Murdoch)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-knowledge/233604/27 "2004-03-11T21:51:12Z")
> [@](#): > > Origianlly posted by **notquitekarpov** > This test may be for US schools but all I was suggesting was that if it was run by an Icelandic schools project it would take a more, how shall we say, **worldly** viewpoint rather than ask folk to name all the fjords or whatever. No? I own a world atlas from France. Half of it is maps of France and the other half is the entire rest of the world (with little Europe taking up a large chunk of that). I don’t think that’s odd. I don’t think it’s quite fair to compare states and provinces to fjords either. ---
**Author:** ![Magickly\_Delicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magickly\_Delicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magickly_Delicious)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-knowledge/233604/28 "2004-03-11T22:40:50Z")
**USA & Canada** 42/62 **Latin America** 9/25 **Europe** 15/30 **Russia & Near Abroad** 1/15 **Monsoon Asia** 7/20 **Middle East & N. Africa** 5/22 I couldn’t get Sub-Saharan Africa to work. In my (pathetic) defense, the one year I had geography was soon after the USSR broke up and the Berlin wall came down, so we completely skipped the “Russia & Near Abroad” areas since our books were out of date. :eek: And I’ve always hated geography… ---
**Author:** ![OxyMoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9a140/32.png) [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2004, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-knowledge/233604/29 "2004-03-12T23:16:20Z")
Shameless brag: I did 'em all, got four wrong, mainly 'cos I was going too fast: Alabama (accidentally clicked Mississippi) and Belgium (accidentally clicked the Netherlands), also confused Swaziland and Lesotho. ---
**Author:** ![Quack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e99b99/32.png) [@Quack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quack)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-knowledge/233604/30 "2004-03-13T02:32:25Z")
USA and Canada: 61/62 Latin America: 23/25 Europe: 20/30 Russia/Republics: 8/15 Monsoon Asia: 19/20 Middle East/N. Africa: 22/22 Sub-Saharan: 27/42 83.3% I’m shocked at how little I know about eastern Europe. ---
**Author:** ![emekthian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecae2f/32.png) [@emekthian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emekthian)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-knowledge/233604/31 "2004-03-13T03:27:29Z")
America/Canada: 54/62 I either missed or wrongly clicked all the southern canadian provinces (I knew where British Colombia was, and Ontario and Quebec, but the rest was a mystery) Europe: 30/30 Although I had to guess which one was Slovokia, and which one was Czech Republic, and which one was Slovenia/Bosnia-Hertz. Russia/Near abroad: 8/15 I confused the Baltic States (I knew they were Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but I wasn’t sure which one was where), Azerbajan, Armenia and Georgia, and the central aisian countries (except Kazakhastan- it’s the big one). Subsaharan africa: 11/42 Just didn’t know most of them Monsoon Aisa: 18/20 I confused Laos and Cambodia Middle East/North Africa: 19/22 I misclicked Isreal, and missed the UAE and Oman Latin America S. America: 20/25 ---
**Author:** ![jastu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/43a26b/32.png) [@jastu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jastu)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-knowledge/233604/32 "2004-03-13T04:55:27Z")
Asia 20/20 Europe 29/30 Middle East & NA 21/22 Russia 11/15 USA & Canada 52/62 (perfect on Canada) Did anyone else have trouble with it recognising PEI? Latin America 17/25 (perfect on South America) S-S Africa 17/42 Well no surprises really. I knew I would do badly with Africa, Central America and N/E USA. Now if they’d only had Oceania section, I could have brought my average up a bit. ☹ I really enjoyed doing this test thanks **Aesiron** now I must try the other one when I have some time. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-knowledge/233604/33 "2004-03-13T06:38:49Z")
Canadian and American Provinces and States: 62/62 Latin America: 25/25 Europe: 29/30 (I grabbed Croatia for Slovenia by accident.) Russia plus: 12/15 Monsoon Asia: 20/20 Middle East and North Africa: 22/22 Sub-Saharan Africa: 38/42 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geographic-knowledge/233604.md?page=1)