# Geography is apparently a lost art, sorry, skill
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [March 1, 2026, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118 "2026-03-01T19:43:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 9
### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [March 7, 2026, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/161 "2026-03-07T00:48:45Z")
You did damned good. Double so for faffing about on a phone.
I’d expected anyone interested would print the graphic at a paper page-filling size & have at it with pencil and eraser. That’s sure what I intended to do if I got up the gumption to do it. Which I have not. Yet.
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### Author:  [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)
#### Post date: [March 7, 2026, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/162 "2026-03-07T17:15:34Z")
Apropos of nothing, just yesterday I had to explain to two people, one of whom has a college degree, that Puerto Rico is part of the United States and that people born there are U.S. citizens.
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### Author:  [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)
#### Post date: [March 7, 2026, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/163 "2026-03-07T17:47:49Z")
did you remind Trump?
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### Author:  [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)
#### Post date: [March 7, 2026, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/164 "2026-03-07T22:20:35Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> Heck, if you gave any adult including us smartest and formerly hippest folks, an outline of the lower 48 and asked us to fill in the state borders I bet it’d be pretty awful too.
I remember seeing Al Franken doing it quickly from memory at the Minnesota State fair, while talking about something else… impressive.
Hey, this one’s got the shapes of the states right…
[ ](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKSQC86GXnYCBdaVNuMf86CHEdb-6Q2ISP-MTfMs_bTNygt360Z3mCs-D0z79cc_ZbHaaAInKPzyWU6siKa85DvbmslWGH4kJFaqVGZAA4vrnQ_9PHc3nRC-l6YxYhTG_jzA59lU347IU/s1600/xkcd.png)
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### Author:  [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)
#### Post date: [March 7, 2026, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/165 "2026-03-07T23:46:09Z")
> [@digs](#):
>
> Hey, this one’s got the shapes of the states right…
As a native of Washington State, I can assure you that the shape in that map bears very little resemblance to the real shape of the state.
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### Author:  [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2026, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/166 "2026-03-08T06:10:42Z")
Eh, it’s close enough for government work.
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### Author:  [@Eric1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eric1)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2026, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/167 "2026-03-08T11:03:09Z")
Wow filling in a map like this sure is a challenge. In 7th grade, we had to do all the global maps but had boundary lines.
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### Author:  [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2026, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/168 "2026-03-08T12:48:49Z")
_ **Global** _ map??!! I would fail miserably.
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### Author:  [@Eric1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eric1)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2026, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/169 "2026-03-08T14:57:26Z")
Well, we actually only did one continent at a time. Africa was kind of a nutcracker for our minds.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2026, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/170 "2026-03-08T15:05:04Z")
Here’s the cite to the actual comic as published:
> **[United States Map](https://xkcd.com/1653/)**
The hover text is great:
> It would be pretty unfair to give to someone a blank version of this map as a 'how many states can you name?' quiz. (If you include Alaska and Hawaii, you should swap the Aleutian Islands with the Hawaiian ones.)
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### Author:  [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2026, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/171 "2026-03-08T15:33:24Z")
> [@Eric1](#):
>
> Africa was kind of a nutcracker for our minds.
I am African, so I can do all of Africa quite easily. I do have to think a bit about which west African long, tall states is which. (Benin and Togo, I am looking at you!)
I can do Europe, Asia etc. The actual states of the United States are reasonably challenging, though.
I can find Florida or California on a map, but Washington? I could guess at some of the midwesterns, because of the geometry - straight lines do help. We were never taught US geography as school, so I have an idea that Utah is somewhat north of Texas, without looking at a map, I would not be able to identify it.
On the other hand, I know where the Faero Islands are, the Maldives, and even the island of Socotra is.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2026, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/172 "2026-03-08T16:20:53Z")
> [@scudsucker](#):
>
> so I have an idea that Utah is somewhat north of Texas, without looking at a map, I would not be able to identify it.
Well, it’s more northerly, anyway, and the southernmost points in Utah are further north than the northernmost points of Texas, but also no point in Utah is directly north of any point in Texas. It’s more west of Texas than north of it.
Directly north of Texas are the Plains States: Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, North Dakota.
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### Author:  [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2026, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/173 "2026-03-08T16:46:09Z")
yeah, but then it was only 20-25 countries; imagine how hard it is now with 54 countries?
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### Author:  [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2026, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/174 "2026-03-08T18:01:45Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> > It would be pretty unfair to give to someone a blank version of this map as a ‘how many states can you name?’ quiz.
Especially since they altered the shapes to make them fit.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2026, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/175 "2026-03-08T18:13:49Z")
They certainly did.
But quite a number of the altered states ( heh 🙂 ) are stupid-obvious. Yes, some are ambiguous, but it’s also kinda hard to tell real Colorado from real Wyoming too.
If I started with a list of the 50 names and kept picking the most obvious state shapes and crossing off the names as I went, I bet I’d get darn close to 50.
One trap I see is that Upper & Lower Michigan are widely separated on this map. Unless my list of 50 states was really 51 with 2 entries for Michigan, I’d be real inclined to misattribute the area that’s meant to be the UP as something else. And of course the mistakes would just cascade from that point forward as I tried to fit the remaining names into the remaining spaces.
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### Author:  [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2026, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/176 "2026-03-08T19:52:25Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> Yes, some are ambiguous, but it’s also kinda hard to tell real Colorado from real Wyoming too.
I wouldn’t be able to, for sure.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2026, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/177 "2026-03-08T20:54:29Z")
Both their gross shapes are roughly rectilinear: 4 smooth segments meeting at roughly 90 degree corners. Being based purely on lines of latitude & longitude, both have gently rockered tops & bottoms while the sides taper inwards just a bit from bottom to top. Colorado is more rectangular, obviously wider than tall. Wyoming isn’t a square, but it’s much closer to being a square. Of course exactly how they’re shaped changes depending on which map projection is used. But since the two states are adjacent, the foibles of the projection affect both very similarly.
They’re also the only two states shaped that simply; everybody else has a meandery river or bumpy coastal border, or a notch, or a handle or …
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2026, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/178 "2026-03-08T21:01:30Z")
Kansas and the Dakotas are still MOSTLY rectangles, though.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2026, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/179 "2026-03-08T21:14:29Z")
True. But with the telltale sign of one border being a natural feature: a river.
Telling those three apart from each other is more difficult because one squiggly line looks a lot like another. Especially in an xkcd drawing of rearranged states rather than a map of real states.
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### Author:  [@Lizzie1210](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lizzie1210)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2026, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geography-is-apparently-a-lost-art-sorry-skill/1028118/180 "2026-03-10T21:56:01Z")
I’m a 70 year old retired nurse. Back when we still had hand written patient charts, a supervisor actually asked my to print rather than make my notes in cursive…..because my cursive was pretty much illegible. That was about 40 years ago and I got in the habit of printing instead of ‘writing’ because it made sense in applications where legibility was absolutely essential.
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