# Picture the outline of Spain. Be honest, did you include Portugal?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [September 23, 2011, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301 "2011-09-23T04:13:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/1 "2011-09-23T04:13:34Z")
My mental picture of “Spain” is the entire Iberian Peninsula. Is yours?
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### Author:  [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/2 "2011-09-23T04:19:27Z")
I pictured the entire Peninsula. Even now I have to make sure I don’t include Portugal.
I should know better.
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### Author:  [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/3 "2011-09-23T05:01:04Z")
I…uh…actually imagine Portugal INSTEAD of Spain.
I don’t know why. Just, in my brain, Spain is the small one.
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### Author:  [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/4 "2011-09-23T05:04:35Z")
I didn’t get much beyond [“it’s kinda liver-shaped, isn’t it?”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuVlL5hzgz8)
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/5 "2011-09-23T05:44:41Z")
I got it right, and even put in a few cities.
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### Author:  [@horsetech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/horsetech)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/6 "2011-09-23T06:40:44Z")
My mental image is a picture of the entire Iberian peninsula, with Portugal smudged out or demarcated in grey.
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### Author:  [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/7 "2011-09-23T08:10:10Z")
I include Portugal, but it’s really no different than when I include Canada when I think of the outline of the United States. 😉
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### Author:  [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/8 "2011-09-23T08:15:21Z")
> [@horsetech](#):
>
> My mental image is a picture of the entire Iberian peninsula, with Portugal smudged out or demarcated in grey.
This, except I picture Spain as violet and Portugal as yellow. There’s probably a mid-70s elementary school geography book to blame.
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### Author:  [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/9 "2011-09-23T08:43:00Z")
I think this experiment would have worked better if you’d spoilered the bit about Portugal instead of putting it in the title.
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### Author:  [@TheChileanBlob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheChileanBlob)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/10 "2011-09-23T12:01:33Z")
I picture it correctly, thanks to a '70s Mad Magazine article, showing Spain as a bull’s head. (Also, Nevada is a slot-machine coin dispenser, and Jordan is a guy in desert robes.)
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/11 "2011-09-23T12:28:52Z")
Entire of Iberia, but I defend it by picturing it during the period between 1580 and 1640.
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### Author:  [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/12 "2011-09-23T12:32:11Z")
Oh, God, I did it, I did it! I’m so ashamed. Spain, I’ll never do it again, I swear! Let me prove it to you! I can get better, I know I can! You just have to give me another chance! Please! I’m begging you! I swear on my mother’s grave that I’ll never think of Po… that country every again!
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### Author:  [@Student\_Driver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Student_Driver)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/13 "2011-09-23T12:58:12Z")
I had a jigsaw puzzle of the (1970s) European map, pieces shaped like the countries (minus tiny places like Andorra) so I always think of Spain and Portugal as separate entities.
I had a jigsaw map of the US from the same company, and they basically said “fuck it” with the smaller New England states, so I mentally combine Vermont and New Hampshire, or Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island…
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### Author:  [@Post\_Miss\_Post](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Post_Miss_Post)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/14 "2011-09-23T13:33:41Z")
> [@Sal\_Ammoniac](#):
>
> Oh, God, I did it, I did it! I’m so ashamed. Spain, I’ll never do it again, I swear! Let me prove it to you! I can get better, I know I can! You just have to give me another chance! Please! I’m begging you! I swear on my mother’s grave that I’ll never think of Po… that country every again!
I don’t think it’s Spain who should be annoyed. It’s Portugal. Spain gains territory, but Portugal ceases to exist.
I did it too.
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### Author:  [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/15 "2011-09-23T13:37:01Z")
I’m not really sure. To be honest, I think of Spain just like France, Germany, and Poland…a squarish blob with jagged edges. With or without Portugal, it seems pretty accurate.
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### Author:  [@Todderbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Todderbob)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/16 "2011-09-23T14:07:41Z")
I pictured them together, but Portugal grayed out.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/17 "2011-09-23T14:48:28Z")
Pretty much just Spain, but that’s because I lived in Portugal for two years. Still, the tendency to just see the Iberian Peninsula is understandable.
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/18 "2011-09-23T15:12:00Z")
Entire peninsula. I KNOW that Portugal hooks onto the west coast somehow, but I can never remember if it’s sitting on part of Spain or hanging off part of Spain, so I just throw it into the whole picture.
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/19 "2011-09-23T15:13:12Z")
I pictured the entire penninsula, but with the border between the two.
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### Author:  [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2011, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picture-the-outline-of-spain-be-honest-did-you-include-portugal/597301/20 "2011-09-23T15:18:07Z")
I exclude Portugal from my mental image of Spain. I exclude Northern Ireland from my image of Ireland. I _include_ the Maastricht appendix in my image of the Netherlands. I’m very precise in my mental map-imaging.
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