If anyone is interested in testing their geographical knowledge, go to this thread.
Thanks for the idea, Shrinking Violet.
Maybe it’s actually the Land of New Zeal…?
Zealand itself is Holland.
The old Zealand. Not the new.
Since we’re being somewhat exact here, “Zealand” (actually spelled Zeeland and pronouced ZAY-land) is in the Netherlands. It is a province, like North (Noord) or South (Zuid) Holland.
I see. Thank you.
…although I do like the idea of a country that’s just so full of newness and zeal…
I think Chefguy’s post was tongue-in-cheek. It’s a classic pretend-confused line about the complicated geographic denomination of The Netherlands. IIRC Chefguy has extensively traveled in Europe and is quite aware of the respective countries.
BTW The Dutch spell it ‘Zeeland’ these days. It is the province that was flooded in 1953.
Somebody already has, poor little thing. Look at it - it’s all broken!
Okay, what the hell is this St. Urho’s Day thing? I heard so much about it when I was in Texas, but I can assure you that the patron saint of Finland is not, nor has it ever been, some guy with a grudge against grasshoppers.
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pkaartin/sturho.html
But hey, any excuse to drink and party, eh? 
Incidentally, the patron saint of Finland is St. Henry, a bishop from the 12th century who was one of the first to bring Christianity to Finland.
Thank you. That had always bothered me, and I was too chicken to ask any of my professors.
About Zealand (Zeeland), that is, not the patron saint of Finland. Though that’s interesting, too.
Jeez, do I have to put freakin’ smilies on everything? I lived in Belgium for two years, folks.
Besides, everyone knows that The Netherlands is owned by the Benelux Corporation.
St. Urho’s Day is a bunch of crap history-wise (not unlike the Kensington Rune Stone – a dubious artifact which supposedly shows that the Vikings reached Minnesota in pre-Columbian times). It’s just a chance for Finns to make spectacles of themselves after the Irish have their go at it one day earlier. When I was in high school my principle wore a purple suit to school every March 18th. I have no idea where he bought such a thing. May 17th is the big day for Norwegians.
I doubt it. Who compares cities based upon area covered? By that measure Juneau is many times larger than Tokyo. Either way, her claim was way off. Oslo, Norway is, However, more than quadruple the size of Oslo, Minnesota.
With regards to the OP, I just don’t think people in general are too terribly up to date on small countries like Norway and New Zealand (though I think the Ring movies have put New Zealand in the public eye like nothing before). Before you shake your head and bemoan the ignorance of others think about places like the Central African Republic and Costa Rica. How much do people know about them? Those countries are the about the same size as Norway and New Zealand.
I’m very skeptical of these type of things as well.
Check out this example http://chicago.about.com/b/a/055336.htm
I mean come on.
Please, no one respond to this saying the Rune Stone is legit.
I think another factor that may partially explain the low scores on student geography surveys is the infamous “whatever” factor. If you hand out a test to a bunch of high school students and tell them this is only for informational purposes, isn’t part of the real class, and will have no effect on their grades, how seriously do you think they take it? I’m sure many of them just pick random answers without even reading the questions. Others probably intentionally pick wrong answers. I’d bet that if you offered twenty bucks or a day off from school to everyone scoring in the top 10%, you’d see a dramatic increase in geographical knowledge.
But Kensington is just a stone throw away from L’ance aux Meadows, of course it’s legit!
( … )
I dont know about the validity of the previous answers on what Zealand is, but, well, Zealand is (incidentally) the English name of Sjælland, the island on which København/Copenhagen is situated. And if you didn’t know by now by reading this thread, Copenhagen is the capital city of Denmark.
They make the vacuum cleaners, right?
St. Urho’s Day was just invented so the Irish didn’t have all the fun. I’ve never heard anyone say it had any sort of value outside of being an excuse to party. And besides, St. Urho’s Day is March 16th!
"The Facking plumage don’t enter into it!"
This thread is assinine.
So what’s Amsterdam and the Hague?
Yeah, and like all products from that area, it’s cheesy.
I can’t believe my countrymen and countrywomen are so stupid. Of course I was always attracted to globes and maps, and they do teach you a lot.
I’m not sure what you mean by saying Australia’s not a prominent country, but because of ties of language and common colonial heritage our two lands are more similar, probably, than any other two countries on earth. Well, OK, I’ll concede that Austria and Germany might be more similar yet, but the US and Australia are similar in many ways. I think people do tend to be more familiar with foreign countries that are like their own, so this ignorance of where Australia is astonishes me. It’s a BIG island, by itself, surrounded by ocean. How can you miss it? If you only spent one minute in your life looking at a globe, it’d be the first thing you’d notice.