"Britain? Is that in Japan or Mos-Cow?" (or: When Geography Goes Wrong)

[imitationleather]

Today I've been informed of two brilliant anecdotes concerning geographical knowledge mishaps, and even though this thread will probably descend into a insult slinging free-for-all at one of our planet's most defenceless and humble countries, I'm willing to take that risk.

Earlier today I was talking to my friend who said he'd been talking to an American boy the previous night (errr... No, I don't know why either). Apparently the Yank lad had asked where my friend was from and my friend replied. The boy then asked, "London? Is that Greece London or Paris London?" This boy had never heard of London. Apparently this little oik wasn't stupid either, he was just completely geographically unaware because at school they're not taught where places are or something.

I don't understand that, even if a teacher had never said to me, "Right then, younger version of imitationleather from the past, New York is in America" surely it's something I would have picked up over time. Infact, I doubt someone at school ever told me that, it's not exactly placed along with blowjobs as something you learn the meaning of in the playground!

As it happens, the friend in question who informed me of this story grew up in America and he's told me about how once in school they were given a map of the world and a list of places that they had to locate on the map. There were a few kids who actually labelled the ocean instead of the land! Madness!

Anyway, I was talking to *ahem* someone in Iraq earlier about this and they told me that lots of British companies over there have taken to using the stars and stripes as their flag because American troops don't know what a Union Jack is and shoot at them. It sounds like one of those silly stories just designed to make fun at Americans, but apparently it's completely true!

So, my question is: How did this state of affairs come about, and how far away from it are we in the UK? And err... Do any of you have any similar locale-orientated howlers?

I am not a racist!

[Krang]

Did you ever see "Thatll teach them" the first series?

Before they went back in time, they were given brief tests to show the standard of a "GCSE student"

A few of the girls couldnt place the location of London on a map of our fair country.

I was quite into geography as a lad. I had a Weetabix World Atlas which I was totally addicted to. Im glad I did, id like to think my mental world map is quite accurate, except for eastern europe, and central south-america.

[Purple Tentacle]

and central south-america.

It's pretty much Brazil, Argentina or maybe Peru.

Central America is a complete mystery to me, and I get all jumbled up with the Balken states.


My knowledge of the Middle East is very good because of all the violent, desert strike-type games I played when I was young. Who says computer games teach you nothing?

[imitationleather]

Yeah, computer games teach you loads about geography. I know everything about the part of the world where the Final Fantasy games take place, for instance.

I also know how to speed around Monaco in a funny looking car. I'm knowledged up!

[Krang]

Lets not forget the Street Fighter series.
THAILAND dow-nownow-danana-nana-nanana-downow!

[Suttonpubcrawl]

It seems to me that we're in pretty much exactly the same situation here, I was really taught very little about geography in the "where places are" sense. My knowledge of the geography of the UK is absolutely pathetic, I have no idea where anything is at all. I'm also pretty poorly informed about geography outside the UK. I suppose it is stupidity an order of magntitude greater to not ever have heard of London but then there are thickos everywhere, aren't there? If you don't teach people these things they're probably not likely to go and work them out for themselves on a map, I know I've never bothered very much.

I think most Londoners' idea of the geography of London is pretty skewed by the tube map. It's a great idea for simplifying a complex system but I wonder if good old Harry Beck could have foreseen back in 1933 the lasting effect his creation would have on people's understanding of the layout of their city. When I was younger for example, I took the tube from St Paul's to Barbican, an extremely complicated journey that probably involved about as much walking around stations as the 5 minute or so walk between the two stations would have. I did actually realise as soon as I got out at Barbican how stupid this had been and now that I'm older and wiser I'll hopefully avoid making such mistakes again, but it's very easy to forget that what you see on the tube map doesn't have to have any relationship to reality.

I have a story that I could tell but I think I'll leave that for someone else.

[lankinpark]

It seems to me that we're in pretty much exactly the same situation here, I was really taught very little about geography in the "where places are" sense. My knowledge of the geography of the UK is absolutely pathetic, I have no idea where anything is at all.

Me too. Other countries I can do (although I get confused with states that have gained independence in the years since I used to look at atlases for fun), but my UK geography is awful. Getting better, but still awful. I know where most of the major cities are, but anything smaller than that and the best I can do is "near Birmingham" or "in the middle somewhere". I was never taught any of this, and it never seemed important.

If I could drive, that might have an effect. As it is, I just take it for granted that the relevant transport will get me to the right place and think no more of it. When I backapcked round Eastern Europe as a student, the only maps I looked at were city maps. Getting between the cities was done by train timetable.

[Suttonpubcrawl]

If I could drive, that might have an effect. As it is, I just take it for granted that the relevant transport will get me to the right place and think no more of it. When I backapcked round Eastern Europe as a student, the only maps I looked at were city maps. Getting between the cities was done by train timetable.

I don't think driving would have an effect to be honest. In the long distance driving I've done either someone else has navigated for me, or I've printed directions off the AA website and briefly looked at the map to get a rough idea of the roads I'll drive on. I find that for me thinking about long distance driving tends to work roughly like this:
A13 to the A406
A406 to the M11
M11 to the M25
M25 to the M1
etc.

It's just like taking the tube! (District to Barons Court, Piccadilly to Heathrow, that sort of thing.)

[mayer]

Football stickers, innit?

I knew countries, continents, capitals, what language was spoken, all that from my Italia '90 collection. That and books about past World Cups.


Maybe when Basketball and "Football" get more worldwide play and inter-country competition American kids sense of geography will improve.


My knowledge of non-footballing nations is quite limited though. And I know fuck all about English counties, (much to the amusement of my housemates... though none of them can name more than three Underground lines, so we're even. ish.)

[slim]

I had a Weetabix World Atlas

I had one of those! Wasn't Dunk (or whatever his name was) making some kind of funky, cool sign with his hand on the front?

[Labian Quest]

For some reason I saved up about 10 weeks pocket money and  bought a globe when I was about 8 years old which gave me a reasonably good knowledge of the counrtries of the world.

As far as people being clueless about other countries goes, a friend of mine was on a skate safari in California and this kid heard his accent and asked him where he was from, so he said 'England' but the kid had never heard of it, so my friend asked him what language he spoke 'English'

'Well, guess which country ENGLish comes from'

[micanio]

I used to be able to name every single capital city - when I was 10 my mum bought me a massive atlas and I used to love looking at it all the time.  Also, as mayer said, football sticker albums alsways used to bolster my geographical education...

to be honest, the lack of geographical knowledge that people have these days is ridiculous and it annoys me no end.

I can slightly understand why Americans might say "You're from Glasgow, is that near London?" becuase of the comparitive sizes of our respective countires...

Although when they say "Do you know so-and-so?" because you come from the same country - that really pisses me off....

[Evil Knevil]

I must admit I know more about the towns of Western Anatolia and the Nile Delta than I do England....
...But then again I'm Scottish, so England is a complete 'other' to me :)

I do think that some knowledge of geography is important, if only because other nations don't seem so remote psychologically. A coup in N'Djamena seems a lot more real when you know that it's the capital of Chad, and where that is, otherwise it could just translate as "funny things happening in bongo-bongo land".

Does that make sense? It's far too late here.

[El Unicornio, mang]

The people at my work seem to think that London is the country where British people come from ("the Queen of London"...."Ozzy Osbourne, he's from London", I keep having to explain that London is a city in England. They also seem to think that it rains constantly in London (not far from the truth)
Mind, the people at my work are a bunch of fucking imbeciles, but still.

I have to confess, my knowledge of world geography isn't great, but you'd think that, since British history makes up a larger portion of what they're taught in US schools than any other country, they'd know where the damn place is. They probably are, but are too busy getting blowjobs and listening to their 50 Cent CDs to care.

I'm amazed at that Union Jack story. The British flag is actually really popular here, you see people wearing it on t-shirts/bags/cars all the time.
Speaking of flags, one thing I hate here is the reverence they have for the stars and stripes. A friend of mine here had an old one at her workplace and she threw it in the bin, and one of her workmates came over, took it out and shouted at her about disrespecting the flag. The next day, she came in and the flag was taped to her desk. Apparently it's a great offence to even let it touch the ground. The governer of Florida even passed a law to ensure that every classroom had a flag with the exact right measurements, they had him on The Daily Show and he was going on about how he was disgusted when he went to a school and one of the classrooms had a flag which was 1inch too small.

I think one day I'm going to go into work and just be totally ignorant, pin the flag on my wall upside down ("Sorry, is that not the right way?"), ask who George Bush is ("Isn't he that actor?"), ask how far it is to walk to New York, mention that Canada is the biggest city in Texas, that kind of thing.

[Ambient Sheep]

I think one day I'm going to go into work and just be totally ignorant, pin the flad on my wall upside down ("Sorry, is that not the right way?"), ask who George Bush is ("Isn't he that actor?"), ask how far it is to walk to New York, mention that Canada is the biggest city in Texas, that kind of thing.

What flowers would you like?

[El Unicornio, mang]

Heh, to be honest I think they'd probably just think I didn't know those things. I think we Brits have a tendency to expect Americans to know all about us and the rest of the world, whereas Americans (at least the ones I've met) assume that we don't know much at all about America. There's been tons of times when people have said to me things like "Do you get The Simpsons/Seinfeld/Friends in the UK?"

But yes, if they figured out I was taking the piss they'd probably shoot me.

[Timmay]

Similar to American's ignorance surrounding geography outside the US, when at Uni in Sheffield, I experienced various northern types with absolutely no knowledge of anything south of Derby. Well, if you say a name that they don't know, they assume it's either in/near London.

When I told people about when I'd worked in Southampton, the extent they'd go to working out where it is is that it's obviously south of Northampton. But where, they didn't know. I may not know the north like the back of my hand, but I like to think that I've at least heard of all the major towns, and have an idea where most of them are.

[terminallyrelaxed]

When I told people about when I'd worked in Southampton, the extent they'd go to working out where it is is that it's obviously south of Northampton. But where, they didn't know. I may not know the north like the back of my hand, but I like to think that I've at least heard of all the major towns, and have an idea where most of them are.

I don't - I'm pretty clued up about everything south of London, but north of the Watford gap is that grim place where everyone talks funny as far as I'm concerned. Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Petersfield, Blackburn, Doncaster, Loughborough, Burnley - couldnt place them on a map for toffee. Might be able to have a stab at Nottingham and Liverpool, but thats just luck and fortuitous maps on news broadcasts.....

[Gazeuse]

When I'm asked where I live by people who work in London and I say Hertford, they quite often say, "Oh, Watford is in Hertford isn't it." They also often seem suprised that it's not hundreds of miles away.

Anyway, I'm planning to take over the world, so a good working knowledge of geography is essential.

[Neville Chamberlain]

I come from Yeovil, a town that everyone in the whole world seems to know, either because of the footy team ("Ooooh, that's the team with the sloping pitch, isn't??? And didn't you beat Sunderland in the FA Cup???" - "Well, the sloping pitch became Tesco's about 15 years ago and our most famous giant-killing moment was in 1948.") or because of the simple fact it lies in Somerset and thus is ripe for taking the piss. Even people I met at uni from Leeds and Manchester knew here the fuck Yeovil was and started asking after the whereabouts of my tractor and other "hilarious" stuff.

[sick as a pike]

I come from Yeovil, a town that everyone in the whole world seems to know, either because of the footy team [...] or because of the simple fact it lies in Somerset and thus is ripe for taking the piss.

Surely also as the location of Stephen Potter's 'College of Lifemanship'?

[Neville Chamberlain]

Surely also as the location of Stephen Potter's 'College of Lifemanship'?

I've never heard of that actually. I've just done a bit of googling and it looks like you've filled a huge gap in my knowledge. Cheers for that info! I shall investigate further...

Yeovil also pops up in IAP1, People Like Us, and in Men Behaving Badly. Why? What's so funny about Yeovil?

[George]

Out here in Dubai, a great many people think our footballers are sovereign states in themselves. I am from David Beckham.

[untitled_london]

i once asked in all serious where danish bacon came from.

i couldn't make the mental leap from danish -> dane -> denmark.

i was 14/15 at the time and took plenty of stick for it.

[Gazeuse]

Where does Danish Bacon come from then??? I thought it was Denmark. I also believe that Danish pastries are made out of  the lefrover pigs' curly litte tails.

[Utter Shit]

I think I have the anecdote to beat all anecdotes with regards to this. In my geography GCSE a few years back, I was struggling somewhat on one section, namely a map of the World, on which you had to identify countries, rivers, cities and the like. So anyway, I'm struggling as I'm shit at geography - I can get most of the countries and cities, but I get mugged off when it comes to rivers, mountains and that. So, like any schoolkid, I give it the old 'sly sideways glance' to the guy on my left, see if he's got a clue. Not likely, he's a known dimwit. Anyway, I'm getting on with my work but he gets my interest because I want to know how badly this guy must be doing, if I'm struggling on it and I'm not as thick as him. My findings astound me. The man is labelling cities in the middle of the sea. I can clearly remember him putting Stockholm in the middle of the Pacific. He carries on, putting the Amazon river in the middle of the sea North of Africa. Then when he's asked to point out the Mediterranean, he places it in central Europe. So it dawns on me, not only does this guy not know the whereabouts of basic countries and cities, HE CAN'T EVEN TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LAND AND SEA.

Perhaps if it had been a colour map, he would have got 100%, although I doubt it somehow.

[zozman]

On the last cool links thread there were a couple of quizzes where you had to idetify all the counties, and one where you had to place the cities.  Can anyone be arsed to wade through it?  I know I can't.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

Do you ever hear someone mention a country (one that you've obviously heard of) and then realise that you don't even know which continent it's in? I remember doing that with Dubai a few years back, and with Kuala Lumpa. The names were so familiar and yet my ignorance of their location was pretty much total.

I'm sure there are loads of really obvious places I couldn't locate on a map.

[Utter Shit]

Forgive my ignorance, but Dubai is...a country?!

[SimonJT]

I don't think it is - it's in the UAE, as far as I can tell. Kuala Lumpur's not a country either, it's the capital of Malaysia.