My experience in Europe was that people had a pretty good textbook knowledge of U.S. geography, but didn’t have any real context of the distances involved. When I told people I was from St. Louis, they pictured it as being basically a suburb of Chicago. When I told them the two cities were about 500 km apart, they were astonished. Unless they’d actually visited the U.S., they just couldn’t conceive of how far apart everything is.
It has been my experience that the Europeans I’ve come across who have not actually spent a year or so in the USA are as pig-ignorant of US geography as the most snooty Eurotrash likes to portray Americans. I have come across the following reactions:
I point in the direction of my house from work, and they are astonished to know that the “forest” I am pointing at is human-inhabited at all. (Mind you, these are college-educated Europeans!)
They are unaware that any territory at all exists between New York and Chicago, or they presume that it can’t be more than 100km or so.
I have been asked by educated Europeans If I have met someone of their acquaintance. Said acquaintance has never been east of the Rocky Mountains so far as they know. I have never been west of the Mississippi.
There is likewise gross ignorance of our climate.
Australians seem to have better knowledge or at least are better able to fake it–probably because they also come from a continent-width nation.
ON is Ontario. I believe that’s a county in the 51st state (Canada), not a US state itself 
I’m sure many places are three times as big as Texas, but, in that I don’t normally use Texases as a measurement system, can you give us your home country to see if we think any stupid Americans could find it?
Sounds like Alaska?
Of course, DC is not in the northeast. It’s a southern city.
Quite well actually, since I follow the NBA and a bit of baseball I’m indirectly subjected to US geography. 
I’d thought it was Austrailia.
He said state, not country. Oz just happens to be almost exactly the size of the continental US, which is convenient for the inhabitants of both when it comes to making geographical comparisons.
3 times texas is most closely matched by Western Australia (a bit bigger than that), and Queensland (a bit smaller than that). Yes, I did have to look up the sizes. Neither is particularly hard to locate, especially since “Western Australia” is exceedingly descriptive.
After meeting many Europeans, they seem amazed at many things, like …
-
The fact that Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and other upstate New York cities aren’t suburbs of New York. They assume New York state = New York city.
-
There are large expressways/motorways through hundreds of kilometers of completely empty areas, like I-10 through west Texas, I-25 through New Mexico or I-90 through Montana.
-
Urban sprawl; a US city will spread much farther, and therefore seem much larger in population than a European city of the same population. The Kansas City metro area, with 1,700,000 residents, extends up to about 25 to 30 kilometers from the city’s downtown.
-
Denver is flat; Europeans often think it’s a mountainous city, surrounded by ski resorts.
-
Again, the distances. They see a map of the US, and imagine it to be just a few tiems the size fo France. They don’t realize that St. Louis is a fast four hour drive from Chicago, or that Atlanta is an eight hour drive from Orlando.
One time when my dad was working at a college he has three part-time student secretaries. One day on a whim he gave them each an outline map of the United States and asked them to fill in all the state names. The only one to get them all right was the Canadian.
Another tidbit about USA geography is that the largest states (area) tend to have the smaller populations. There are exceptions, but the western larger states have much lower population density than the smaller eastern ones.
Using a mapping software, I calculated that one could drive the six New England states (clipping only the corners of a few) in an afternoon. Considering the population of those states, it would be hard to find another six states in any region where that could be done.
Even though Missouri and Tennessee share the distinction of bordering the most states (and they “border” each other if you don’t count the water separating them) it would take days to touch ground in the surrounding states.
It used to be true (and even advertised) that you could see seven states from the Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga. With air pollution nowadays, you’re lucky to see the three nearest (including the one you’re standing on).
That also applies along the Skyline Drive through Shenandoah National Park in western Virginia. There’s a plaque there that says it used to be possible to see the Washington Monument in DC (some 80 miles away) from the spot where the plaque stands. On a “clear” day today, you’d be fortunate to see 30 miles.
Galapagos Islands?
Only because I didn’t believe it and got up and looked at the big world map on the wall.
I’d grant that “gotcha” if it’s considered that the Galapagos Islands are part of the “continent” of South America. If so, I’m guilty of some geographical ignorance that you have cured me of.
Meanwhile, I’ll contend that they may be considered as part of the “political map” of SA, but separate from the continent as such.
I’m an American, and I was surprised to discover that the mile high city is flat. I was even surprised that the Eastern half of Colorado is flat like Kansas.
Other things that took this 'merkin by surprise:
-
LA is hardly ever hot. Matter of fact, it’s kinda chilly a lot of the time.
-
San Francisco is a long way from Oregon.
I’m pretty well traveled in the US, and I can (now) point out most cities on the map… but I’d think there’s a lot of things Americans don’t know about their own country. So no surprise if Europeans, Asians, Africans, and Australians have a few misconceptions.
Even though I had to memorize the state capitols as a kid (I think it was schoolwork, but might have been something my dad had me do) I get stuck these days in some states by substituting the larger cities instead. I’d be hard-pressed to get all 50 today.
It’s another fun exercise (that I have never done but have considered) to subtract out the populations of the major cities (usually three to six per state) from the total USA population and see how few people do NOT live in cities.
Excuse the nitpick, but a capitol is a building, a capital is a city.
Thanks!
That’s another thing I was supposed to memorize in school, and always have trouble with. Shoulda checked it first, since I did slow down and wonder.
Right after college graduation I took a few months off to travel around the Eastern US (I’m an American) which I hadn’t had a chance to visit since my family moved to Alaska when I was in high school. While in Savannah GA I met a couple of Europeans travelling the states also, James from Switzerland and Eva from Germany, to make a long story short we decided to drive from Savannah to New Orleans together. Being familar with the distances involved I suggested that if we drove in shifts and stayed on the road about 12 hours a day we could reach New Orleans in two days without killing ourselves. They were amazed. Even looking at a map, with a scale in KM they couldn’t wrap their heads around how friggin big the US was (and they’d both been in country for several months each!) James had a tendancy to measure the trip in terms of “driving to London from his house”
Every few hours he’d pipe up “If I’d left home when we started this morning I’d be in London by now” or “I’d be back home from London by now” I would retort with “If I’d left Anchorage for Seattle when we left I’d still be in Alaska right now” and “still in Alaska” etc… until at the end of the day “I’d probably be in Canada by now” Unfortunatly our drive to New Orleans didn’t last long enough for me to get out of Canada going by my “driving to Seattle scale”
So yeah in my experience Europeans don’t quite grasp the scale of US geography, even if they have a good handle on it in general.
how well do non-Americans understand our US geography?
It depends on how well they comprehend what they read or see abou it on TLC/TDC/PBS/BBC.
DUH!
TheFunkySpaceCowboy, you’ve reminded me of something I did recently. I was trying to plan a “central location” for a family reunion. The majority of my family lives in the southern states, with some as far away as Alaska. I used my handy-dandy mapping software to find a midpoint from the Alaska town (one extreme) and a Florida town (other extreme) and was blown away that it’s somewhere in Saskatchewan or Alberta.
For those who “feel” that Alaska is just a hop and a jump above the border, check a map!