My 10 year old grandson here in the UK can name dozens of countries and can recognize the flag for many of them. And there is nothing unusual about him.
Thank goodness!!! And, it has to be said, the 11 year old American at the end of the clip who absolutely slayed the 'adults' who had preceded him :-P :-D Incredible ignorance from most participants
Pointing to a state in YOUR OWN COUNTRY and calling it a country is also pretty bad. Also, all of them could just have pointed to the US, and didn't even do that. Yikes.
As a norwegian. I am not surprized. Americans from the united states, all know who the 16th president was, even i do, but no sence of the world. Not even a clue about history. Its a tad longer than 250 years btw. Thats the sad part. The world dont need Wyatt Earp atm, but we are closing on o.k. corral and ∞. But they will unleash stalin 2.0 cos they dont realy have democracy, only who bought whom for what price.. And before you start: 330mil peeps. 2 parties? Yup. 5,5mil. 10 parties... 6 or 7 that matter. democracy in the usa... thats a joke. Stop electing geriatrics as a start?
there was a tv show on australian tv years ago and the presenter stopped an american and asked him to name a country beginning U and he answered yugoslavia
For that, you have to be aware, that north is allways on top of the map, right...? I'm not so sure about that, by the performance of the tested humans...
They didn't "reverse" the map - it's a perfectly valid map, just from the pacific. You'll find maps like that used in Australia, New Zealand, south-east asia etc.
When I was contracted to work in the US for six years, my older kids joined US grades 5 and 6 (aged 9 and 10). Their first weekend after joining their new schools (my son in DC, my daughter in N VA), they both said they wanted to drop studying what one school called Geography, and the other called Social Studies. "Why?" I asked, as I knew both enjoyed these subjects back home. "Because everything they're teaching about geography, we each learned in Yr 2," my son replied. 🤦♂️
That's odd as i know people that did the same, and they were put forward two years in school when they went to the US. Policy must have changed as that was 35 years ago. When i went to the American Embassy school in Saudi in the 1980s, they were teaching us how to read and write with cassette and headphones. Thankfully my parents had us reading hundreds of books by that point
Aussie here, you did really well, so you proved that Americans do know the wider World. However, you just know that the segment is going to highlight those that don’t know to get a laugh. A few weeks back my 7 year old granddaughter told me all she knew about the Statue of Liberty and was excited to tell me France gave it to America and remind me that her cousins live in France. I told her that I was glad she was learning about the World and she told me she “oh, I learned that back in Prep Grade” … when she was 5 y.o. My reaction 😮😮😮because she has learning difficulties.
@@Patrik6920 that’s kind of you to say, but she has been assessed and diagnosed with dyslexia and dyscalculia. Covid/home schooling delayed a diagnosis but there is a family history of learning difficulties on both sides of our daughter’s family. But, we will just have to discover where her perseverance and talents will take her.
@@judileeming1589 ty for explaining.. me myself also have dyslexia and what can be refered to as dyscalcula by any medical definition, and its not really a problem, on the contrary... we see and evaluate the wourls around us differently just... it has no impact what so ever on IQ/EQ, in most cases IQ/EQ is far above normal, i live in Northen EU btw, and a fear the US School system as it is may (or not) make it worse... ...most important will be to ask her how she sees things and how she learns...
As a Brit I am of course better informed: Narnia, Wonderland, Mordor, Mu, Atlantis, Lilliput, Brobingnag, Cornwall, Laputa, Button Moon, Wales, Gallifrey.
As I keep saying. The problem is not, that people don't know the exact location of Lichtenstein. The problem is that some will confidently point at the ocean when asked to find it on a map.
Fortunately, for me as a U.S citizen, I have been there on a college trip a long time ago. the trip consisted of visiting Germany, the western side of Austria, a days worth of time in Lichtenstein, and finally Switzerland. Until I took that trip I admit I do not believe I have ever heard of Lichtenstein, but after it I have never forgotten about it or where it sits on the map, be it just Europe or the world.
I’m employed by a major US airline and based in London, England. It shocked and saddened me that when the airline was supporting the US troops sent to Afghanistan, the airline had to display a map of the world on our intranet, under the heading, Where is Afghanistan? Also, many years ago while I was living and working in the US, a young colleague told me that he loved my accent, asked where I was from then when I told him, asked how long does it take to get there on a Greyhound bus. I did not have the heart to reply so changed the subject.
The map isn’t reversed, as in flipped round, When we look at a map (not Google Maps), we are use to looking at either Mercator or Gall Peters Maps, where UK is situated in the middle of the map, 0 line of longitude runs down the centre & the international date line between Alaska and Russia is to the left and right of the map, Mercator This projection was developed by Gerardus Mercator back in 1569 for navigational purposes. Its ability to represent lines of constant course from coast to coast made it the perfect map for sailing the seas. Its popularity was so great that it became used as a geographic teaching aid even though the projection grossly distorts countries sizes. This is at its worst the closer you are to the poles. Greenland is 550% too big, it should fit into Africa 14 times! Gall-Peters This is a cylindrical world map projection, that regains accuracy in surface area. It is named after James Gall and Arno Peters. Whilst Gall, first described the projection in 1855 it was not until 1973 when Peters, began to heavily market the projection as the ‘Peters World Map’ that it became popular. He called it a “new invention” that allowed poorer, less powerful nations to be restored to their rightful proportions. It is thought that the first use of the name ‘Gall Peters’ was by Arthur Robinson (Robinson Projection) in a pamphlet produced by the American Cartographic Association in 1986. This map is actually a Pacific Ocean Map, where the international Date Line runs down the centre of the map and the 0 line of longitude is to the left and right of the map, 🇬🇧😎👍🏼
Every commercially and educationally available global map has Europe on the right and the Americas on the left. Explaining why this one isn't does not dismiss the fact someone thought it would be funny to specifically use a non-standard map most people wouldn't be familiar with. It was obviously done for entertainment purposes and to trick the less observant.
@@melchiorvonsternberg844 That's quite a trick since Germany didn't exist back then... _Germany first became a country in 1871 when most of the German-speaking nations of Europe were unified under the Prussian crown_ Wasn't it still the holy Roman empire back then? _the Erdapfel_ _The oldest surviving terrestrial globe is the Erdapfel ("Earth Apple"), which was made in the (modernly identified) city of Nuremberg between 1491 and 1492_ _Nuremberg was one of the largest cities in the Holy Roman Empire in the 1490s_
My grandmother, whom I adored, always told me that "knowledge is power", which makes it possible to discuss things and not look like an uneducated person! however, my grandmother, who was very cultured, was a housekeeper in an institution for disabled people (but with a beautiful library in her house). that's the difference!!! from France
I believe this 100% I've been to the US 5 times and the standard of basic knowledge is close to zero. They are not interested in the world outside the US, I was in Ohio and met some people in RV campsite. I was talking with them about the world, and they said they had never been outside their County not state county. I asked why not, and they said why we have everything here. They were not sure where England was.
Someone once told me that England was not a country but a nation. Huh? So I gave him a list of countries, and to tell me which ones were nations and which ones were countries. He couldn't (or wouldn't) answer.
@@MisterHowzat Well England is a nation and part of the country of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Since “country” usually means a “sovereign nation-state with their own foreign policy.”
@@peterbruells28 Then why couldn't that person answer my question? And here's a question for you: What's the difference between "nation" and "country". (Hint: "nation" has more to do with people than national/geographical/political borders.) And here's something interesting to consider: the UK is a country that consists of 4 countries (or what I prefer to call "country states"): England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
I am 83 years old, my education was completed many decades ago. I did one of those on-line geography "tests" a week or so ago, where they show you the "outlines" of 70 different countries and you have to identify them by name and location. I got 68 out of 70 right, and one of my two "misses" was caused by me clicking too soon. The average American is likely to point to Australia or Patagonia when asked to identify Greenland on a world map! American education, especially at primary and even secondary level, is extremely basic and seems to be mostly concerned with teaching kids American history in minute detail and sing the national anthem or properly fold and kiss flags - if Trumptidumpty's behaviour is anything to go by. It's just ludicrous how completely ignorant so many Americans remain about the rest of the world. Some of that gets corrected at some damn fine (but expensive) universities scattered around the US, but the fact remains that only a small minority of people gets to attend such universities.
You should react to the one where they just ask the passersby to point to America on the map. Yes - that's ALL they have to do: point to their own home country.
It all depends what you mean by “country”. Wales is a country, but it is a constituent part of the UK. Greenland is a constituent part of the Kingdom of Denmark, but it is autonomous from the government of, and separate legally from the country of, Denmark. Denmark is part of the EU, but Greenland is not. Greenland is certainly not a possession of Denmark, nor is it a “territory”.
Some years ago, my cousin who lives in LA showed me his daughter’s geography book. It showed the USA as twice the size it is and in the centre of the map with the other much smaller countries surrounding it. My chin dropped to somewhere in the region of my navel!
@@allenwilliams1306People usually say "UN member state in its own right" but that would rule out several recognised countries, including Taiwan and the Vatican.
@@neuralwarp People would therefore be wrong, wouldn't they? It is very easy for the English to realize that the meaning of the English word “country” is nothing to do with being a sovereign state, because England is not a sovereign state, but quite definitely is a country, like Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales, all four of which make up the state that is the United Kingdom. Foreigners often make the mistake of thinking that the UK is a country. It is not. We have, by contrast, no problem in recognizing that Greenland, the Faeroe Isles, and Denmark are three separate countries within one kingdom and one state.
I remember seeing a similar show to this years ago where the presenter asked random people in the street what they thought about the war with Afghanistan at the time. Every one of them said the US should wipe Afghanistan off the map but when asked to point out even an approximate location of Afghanistan on a world map, none of those people pointed to anywhere near the Middle East. One woman pointed to Australia and another pointed to western Europe 😮. Scary indeed.
Same with the election of 2016 where you repeatedly heard “what about Benghazi” my response was can you show me Benghazi on a map? If not go educate yourself and maybe you will stop embarrassing yourself.
I asked this to my american friend, who is well educated, well travelled and has lived in Europe, he absolutely aced this test. I made him stop after country 100 or so. ( he's brilliant, not kidding) In return he asked me to name all 50 US states,.... i only got to 43 and felt bad. After that i took the US citizen test online, and passed!!! just to piss him off. 😂 ( fyi i did study a whole afternoon for that, so not out of nothing, those questions about the legislative branch very few europeans would get right without studying) the rest was pretty much knowledge i already had.
43 isn't bad. And I don't think you can compare naming states in a country with having knowledge about the world. The latter is a bit more important to know I would say..
Let my try without Googling: Oregon Washington California Texas Nevada Colorado North dakota South dakota Idaho Olklahama Kansas Arkansas Alaska Illinois Michigan North Carolina South Carolina Louisiana Tennessee Florida Pensylvainia New York Virginia West Virginia Hawaii Maine Massachusetts Rhode Island New Jersey Maryland Missouri Mississippi Kentucky Minnesota Iowa Wisconsin Ohio Indiana Georgia Alabama Connecticut Vermont New Hampshire I cant remember anymore and Ive counted, its the same as yours. We are both 7 states short. Edit: Arizona and Delaware, now im 5 short.
To be fair, naming all the states of another federal nation is far more difficult than naming 100 nations in the world. States usually do not appear internationally on their own, but under the label of their nation. If you don't have any reason to delve deeper into the administrative details of a nation, it's more of a hobbyist's knowledge. Also, I doubt that your buddy would be able to list the states of _all_ federal republics worldwide. If so, kudos, he's a real crack.
You should ask your US friend to name all of the Counties in the UK; which would be a similar test to naming all 50 US States, though there are 92 UK Counties, so there is that.
I had a friend many years ago thought he could get a job teaching at Oxford Uni England and fly home for the weekends to Australia. Needless to say I utterly flabbergasted 🫤
You'd think they would know where Canada or Mexico was at least? These are people that have presumably had access to Google Maps on their phone for years now
well they did create everything from fire to the wheel to erm internet ................. they have invented very little they just think they have, hell even modern era stuff is British invented internet and tvs etc
A great parlour game is to have an outline of Europe with no borders marked then ask folks to draw in where the countries are That is quite funny. The best thing is the quizmaster needs to have an overlap of the actual countries. In my classroom this was last day of term type stuff and I had an epidiascope so the students could do it on paper and I had an overlay.
@@mgregory2430 They were eaten by the overhead projectors My mother at school in the 1940s in Britain had epidiascopes and they were bulky items but when I was at school in the 1970s it was all overhead projectors. I was looking into an epidiascope for my language classroom and found that a strong light and a camera on a stand worked well and there are specialist items They are brilliant and you don't need the acetate sheets to write on JUST paper
The US citizens suffer from the handicap of their country never having an empire. Us baby boomer British kids went through school during the break-up of the British empire. Having once conquered a quarter of the globe, knowing countries and capitals was part of both our history and geography. Also the US is more a continent in style, and so the people are more self contained, and do not need to relate to the rest of the world in the same way as European citizens do.
Sorry, as a Brit, I couldn't watch all of this and had to stop half way through. It's too embarrassing watching American adults try to answer questions that most children from the rest of the world could answer.
Having visited the US many times it always amazes me how insular Americans are. American news programmes seem to forget the rest of the world exists, I was over there in November 1989 and the collapse of the Berlin wall, one of the biggest events of that (and any other) year was about the fourth or fifth story on the main news channels, as if it was some kind of afterthought.
"I never learned to read, and I never learned to cook. Why should I bother when I look like I look? I know lots of people are smarter than me, But I have this philosophy: So what? 'Cause I'm a blonde, yeah, yeah, yeah." (Yeah, I know: not all brunettes are smart, either!) 😀
As a natural born American I lived in the mid-west for 60+ yrs, except for many trips abroad, to learn what the world is really like. When I returned home, tried to talk to other Americans about my (wonderful) experiences abroad, nothing but blank stares, looks of confusion. Most tuned out, walked away after a minute or two. The American mindset has always been, we live in the greatest country in the world, we have everything here, so, I don't need to waste good American money on traveling to other countries, when all their people want to move to the U.S. to be like us. They don't even have TV over there. YES, a American actually said that to a visiting foreigner. Americans truly believe, unless it pays well, they don't need to know it. So, who cares about other countries, we certainly don't!
Hey guys, im not American and i know flipping the map is a little different but this is sad..they could at least recognise their own country...im.sure this is not a representation of American but this is embarassing to watch...how are people so dumb??
Sorry to be so negative, but I came to the conclusion many years ago on a trip to Florida that your average American knows only what happens in America and the rest of the world doesn't seem to exist
I would like to say that I’m surprised with this, but I’m not at all surprised. America has always had this thing with isolationism, only getting involved when they have had to, don’t get me wrong, happy they are on our side. Merry Christmas to our American friends from the UK.
Kudos for the Midwest couple 🙂 You are not the stupid Americans 🙂 You do have at least some knowledge of geography! On this Kimmel-test it was a bit tricky as they presented the global map in an unorthodox way.
It shouldn't make any difference how the map is displayed. If you learnt basic shapes, i.e. Triangle, Square and Circle, and they were always in that order. Then they were presented to you in a different order, you should still be able to discern the different shapes. A map although it has more complex shapes, is the same thing, it is just spatial awareness and pattern recognition. It is like saying that you will only recognise a banana if you are holding it in your left hand, if you hold it in your right hand it looks like a pineapple. Anyway, they only show the people who make a fool out of themselves, it isn't a true representation of a countries intelligence, the lad at the end proves that. He was probably the best and youngest they found that day, there were quite likely a load of people that were in between the "idiots" they showed and the smart kid at the end, but then they wouldn't show them because it makes crap tv.
No matter how it was presented, flipped, upside down etc, if you know the basic outlines of continents, you should be able to re-orientate. If one doesn't even know the outlines of continents, don't even ask that same person the countries in that continent. Easiest to identify is first the country Australia, then with NZ besides it. Countries that are small and clustered together in a certain continent will be of course harder than bigger ones and those on the edges of each continent.
I understand but that's not an excuse. The kid definitely wasn't confused by that and anyone who knows some geography (even vaguely) won't be either. What if they showed them a globe? Would they go "I've only studied geography on a flat map so I can't name any country."?
Yes, that form is less common. However, it wasn’t even upside down. That would throw me off, but the idea that you can’t find any country you supposedly know because of this is just laughable.
It's not flipped, but I know what you mean. That going to be my question, since we Brits are familiar with being in the centre, as Al Murray explained. I guess you use the same map with zero longitude in the middle.
@@grahamfrear9270 also because the British navy plotted alot of ancient maps, and were voted as the centre from the rest of the world governments at the time
They ask if they can name any country on this map, But non of them points to the most obvious one in the middle of the map, Australia, the smallest continent and one of the largest countries on Earth, lying between the Pacific and Indian oceans in the Southern Hemisphere. 🇦🇺🤣👍🏼
If you want to test your knowledge of countries there is a quiz where you get a country name and have to click on the appropriate part of the map You could do it as a competition between yourselves see how you do on Europe.
It was great to see that last young boy knowing so much more than any of the young adults who came before him. It's not just the woeful ignorance exhibited by many in videos like this, but the apparent lack of curiosity and desire to understand the world that has contributed to that ignorance. I find it sad that even with resources like Google at their fingertips many don't take the opportunity to educate themselves more widely to understand the world they live in better. One problem, I believe, is that the attention span of many younger people is noticeably shorter these days, and the retention of learned information seems poorer even among young adults. Internet and smart phone technologies have so much of real educational value to offer and yet people let themselves be distracted and preoccupied instead with celebrity culture, TikToks and other vacuous forms of social media. It's called "dumbing down"...
Name a country in Africa. This is off the top of my head: Egypt. Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, Chad, Sudan, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Madagascar, Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, Lesotho, Mauretania, Senegal, Namibia, Botswana. Still missed a lot. But I’d say that’s about 2/3rd to 3/4ths.
Don't feel too bad. The 16-year-olds at my school would fail just as badly. I've lost count of how many times I've heard a teacher say, 'Africa isn't a country, it's a continent.' It's an English Pupil Referral Unit, so we're not talking about a high level of attainment or engagement, but it's genuinely not just Americans; just that the US probably has a lower level of geographic knowledge for a 'higher' level of overall education.
There is a quiz show in Britain called Richard Osman's House of Games and one of the rounds is called 'Where is Kazakhstan?' and the contestants have to place a marker on a map where a place or landmark is or something happened and half the time they get even the country wrong! Mind you, at least they have heard of the countries they got wrong!
I wouldn't worry too much about your fellow Americans. I suspect only the hopeless ones made the edit for comedic value and then the kid to put them all to shame. I reckon the orientation of the map was just to bait the flat earthers.
I feel so sorry for all these people.... se in th euk we have something here called education, its carried out in a place called a school. we have hundreds of them all over our little island, we could lend you some if you need them to help you learn your countries.... OMG.
I'm reasonably ok with Geography although I know most of the Countries in South America I don't know them all and same with Africa & Asia but I would say that I could name more than 50% of Countries around the Globe! :) GB
You both are better than me at geography. Also I can never remember all the country's in Europe in one go. I get to 15 -20 and thats about it. Too many to remember in one go 🙂👌
As a Brit who wasn't into Geography either, I could probably only name as many as you two did, maybe a couple more. But no way I could name the ones in South America like that kid. I bet he can point and name all the states in the USA as well
I just love you two guys, well done with your answers, but you have to admit that with the exception of the young boy the rest of it is nothing short of frightening.
Not sure but that is not the representation we have in UK, or Europe I think. Generally UK is in the centre. Not sure if that may have caused the people an issue, it shouldn't, but clutching at straws here. I think it might also be rabbit in headlights, cause, no-one said USA, after which I would expect Mexico and Canada to be possible. I'm guessing, I'm asking, how would Americans normally expect to see world map? but thinking normally they wouldn't.
Stop anyone in Europe and they would answer at least 5, at least. Being an isolated large country like USA prevents this knowledge. Canada above, Mexico below. We are surrounded by other countries so our awareness of them is obvious and beneficial.
It's disgraceful that US citizens either aren't taught or aren't paying attention in school, but the knowledge can be picked up/reinforced by extracurricular things like Risk and video games where real countries are identified--I spent a lot of time playing the old Uncharted Waters series and recognize portions of the map at least. And no matter how much certain elements in our society "love the uneducated", their rah-rah jingoism should make them want US citizens to at least know our OWN country.
I wonder if older people might have done better on that quiz, not because we're smarter, but because we learned geography in an age when you couldn't just Google stuff. Presumably, geography is still being taught in schools. My guess would be that students in later generations "round file" the information after the test because they don't want to waste mental resources on stuff they can just look up. I read that one of the smartest people who ever lived, Albert Einstein, refused to commit his own phone number to memory because he could just look it up. This was back in the days of telephone directories when everyone's number was public information.
These videos are heavily cherry picked, that's why they focus so much on a handful of people, you only need to find one ignorant person out of a hundred people to make the subject of the skit. 99% of Americans would have no issue pointing to the US, Canada and Mexico on a map even if they didn't know any others and most could at least pick out Australia, Russia and the UK at the very least
I used to be able to name every country. But Yugoslavia and Czehoslovakia split up, Germany reunited and a bunch of others changed their names ... so no longer.
To be fair, the US has 50 states and their education system has to allow for learning about that instead. So it's kind of understandable and forgivable that their foreign geopolitical knowledge would differ from what some non-US residents would expect
"Who knows stuff like that?"
EVERYONE over 11 years old outside of USA
My 10 year old grandson here in the UK can name dozens of countries and can recognize the flag for many of them. And there is nothing unusual about him.
Thank goodness!!! And, it has to be said, the 11 year old American at the end of the clip who absolutely slayed the 'adults' who had preceded him :-P :-D
Incredible ignorance from most participants
Not knowing where a country is on a world map is one thing. Not being able to name a single country is a whole other thing.
Calling an entire continent a country is even worse.
Pointing to a state in YOUR OWN COUNTRY and calling it a country is also pretty bad.
Also, all of them could just have pointed to the US, and didn't even do that. Yikes.
@@AgentOccam Probably because they couldn't find it on the map in the first place..
As a norwegian. I am not surprized. Americans from the united states, all know who the 16th president was, even i do, but no sence of the world. Not even a clue about history. Its a tad longer than 250 years btw. Thats the sad part. The world dont need Wyatt Earp atm, but we are closing on o.k. corral and ∞. But they will unleash stalin 2.0 cos they dont realy have democracy, only who bought whom for what price.. And before you start: 330mil peeps. 2 parties? Yup. 5,5mil. 10 parties... 6 or 7 that matter. democracy in the usa... thats a joke. Stop electing geriatrics as a start?
Not really, right in the middle is a country and also a continent and you should know that one judging from your nick @@PhantomFilmAustralia
He kid at the end was probably Canadian 😅
@@delphi-moochymaker62 Seriously? I must be an above average Canadian because I can rattle off 100 easily.
@@delphi-moochymaker62 In South America?
@@Fred-vy1hm New England, is not a country...
Well ..what fo we expect in a Nation of Barbies abd Kens..inteligence
Without a doubt. He's probably in grade 4- as I recall.
I think your average European can more easily find Florida, Texas or California than your average American can point to the UK or France.
there was a tv show on australian tv years ago and the presenter stopped an american and asked him to name a country beginning U and he answered yugoslavia
The chasers war on everything! Great show
How funny! USA hahahaha
@@adammuggleton4107 lol exactly even if he didn't know any others
Yeah, what a foul. He should ask a European for a correct answer.
😂😂😂😂😂🎉
How do you not know where we are located. South Africa. It's literally there in the name...😂
How many countries are falsely named? Like "People's Republic of".
@@neuralwarpor "great" Britain. Good luck finding that based on its name.
For that, you have to be aware, that north is allways on top of the map, right...? I'm not so sure about that, by the performance of the tested humans...
They didn't "reverse" the map - it's a perfectly valid map, just from the pacific. You'll find maps like that used in Australia, New Zealand, south-east asia etc.
When I was contracted to work in the US for six years, my older kids joined US grades 5 and 6 (aged 9 and 10). Their first weekend after joining their new schools (my son in DC, my daughter in N VA), they both said they wanted to drop studying what one school called Geography, and the other called Social Studies. "Why?" I asked, as I knew both enjoyed these subjects back home. "Because everything they're teaching about geography, we each learned in Yr 2," my son replied. 🤦♂️
That's odd as i know people that did the same, and they were put forward two years in school when they went to the US. Policy must have changed as that was 35 years ago.
When i went to the American Embassy school in Saudi in the 1980s, they were teaching us how to read and write with cassette and headphones. Thankfully my parents had us reading hundreds of books by that point
Aussie here, you did really well, so you proved that Americans do know the wider World. However, you just know that the segment is going to highlight those that don’t know to get a laugh. A few weeks back my 7 year old granddaughter told me all she knew about the Statue of Liberty and was excited to tell me France gave it to America and remind me that her cousins live in France. I told her that I was glad she was learning about the World and she told me she “oh, I learned that back in Prep Grade” … when she was 5 y.o. My reaction 😮😮😮because she has learning difficulties.
@@judileeming1589 ...may i suggest thats ur grand-daughter dont have learnig disabilites, but rather the US school system has teaching disabilities...
@@Patrik6920 that’s kind of you to say, but she has been assessed and diagnosed with dyslexia and dyscalculia. Covid/home schooling delayed a diagnosis but there is a family history of learning difficulties on both sides of our daughter’s family. But, we will just have to discover where her perseverance and talents will take her.
@@judileeming1589 ty for explaining..
me myself also have dyslexia and what can be refered to as dyscalcula by any medical definition, and its not really a problem, on the contrary... we see and evaluate the wourls around us differently just... it has no impact what so ever on IQ/EQ, in most cases IQ/EQ is far above normal, i live in Northen EU btw, and a fear the US School system as it is may (or not) make it worse...
...most important will be to ask her how she sees things and how she learns...
One girl says “who knows stuff like that”. Well, the rest of the world, the world outside of the USA, knows stuff like that.
5 year olds outside America could name atleast 5 countries on a map
Can you answer what 我们 means? 1,412 billion people can it. Are you stupid?
As a Brit I am of course better informed: Narnia, Wonderland, Mordor, Mu, Atlantis, Lilliput, Brobingnag, Cornwall, Laputa, Button Moon, Wales, Gallifrey.
Wales 🤣Don't forget Sto Laht.
You forgot the Neverlands.
An Spanish speaker should say Macondo.
@@AlmightyCRJ Sorry. And the Never-Neverlands.
@@jesusperezvigil4824 Thanks. Consider Macondo added.
As I keep saying. The problem is not, that people don't know the exact location of Lichtenstein. The problem is that some will confidently point at the ocean when asked to find it on a map.
Fortunately, for me as a U.S citizen, I have been there on a college trip a long time ago. the trip consisted of visiting Germany, the western side of Austria, a days worth of time in Lichtenstein, and finally Switzerland. Until I took that trip I admit I do not believe I have ever heard of Lichtenstein, but after it I have never forgotten about it or where it sits on the map, be it just Europe or the world.
@@nickmasuen1859 - Then maybe you'll actually remember that the country is actually Liechtenstein!!!
Would that be Lichtenstein (a purely fictitious country) or Liechtenstein, a country between Switzerland and Austria in Central Europe?
@@tonyobadinage6647 Haha. Thanks for pointing that out. I was just testing you oc ;)
@@mabus4910 - Here to help, mate
I’m employed by a major US airline and based in London, England.
It shocked and saddened me that when the airline was supporting the US troops sent to Afghanistan, the airline had to display a map of the world on our intranet, under the heading, Where is Afghanistan?
Also, many years ago while I was living and working in the US, a young colleague told me that he loved my accent, asked where I was from then when I told him, asked how long does it take to get there on a Greyhound bus.
I did not have the heart to reply so changed the subject.
The map isn’t reversed, as in flipped round,
When we look at a map (not Google Maps), we are use to looking at either Mercator or Gall Peters Maps, where UK is situated in the middle of the map, 0 line of longitude runs down the centre & the international date line between Alaska and Russia is to the left and right of the map,
Mercator
This projection was developed by Gerardus Mercator back in 1569 for navigational purposes. Its ability to represent lines of constant course from coast to coast made it the perfect map for sailing the seas. Its popularity was so great that it became used as a geographic teaching aid even though the projection grossly distorts countries sizes. This is at its worst the closer you are to the poles. Greenland is 550% too big, it should fit into Africa 14 times!
Gall-Peters
This is a cylindrical world map projection, that regains accuracy in surface area. It is named after James Gall and Arno Peters. Whilst Gall, first described the projection in 1855 it was not until 1973 when Peters, began to heavily market the projection as the ‘Peters World Map’ that it became popular. He called it a “new invention” that allowed poorer, less powerful nations to be restored to their rightful proportions. It is thought that the first use of the name ‘Gall Peters’ was by Arthur Robinson (Robinson Projection) in a pamphlet produced by the American Cartographic Association in 1986.
This map is actually a Pacific Ocean Map, where the international Date Line runs down the centre of the map and the 0 line of longitude is to the left and right of the map,
🇬🇧😎👍🏼
Every commercially and educationally available global map has Europe on the right and the Americas on the left. Explaining why this one isn't does not dismiss the fact someone thought it would be funny to specifically use a non-standard map most people wouldn't be familiar with. It was obviously done for entertainment purposes and to trick the less observant.
true but this dose not stop a person from using there brain and fix it mentaly
You Brits are already aware that the oldest globe in existence was made by a German, right?
@@melchiorvonsternberg844 That's quite a trick since Germany didn't exist back then...
_Germany first became a country in 1871 when most of the German-speaking nations of Europe were unified under the Prussian crown_
Wasn't it still the holy Roman empire back then?
_the Erdapfel_
_The oldest surviving terrestrial globe is the Erdapfel ("Earth Apple"), which was made in the (modernly identified) city of Nuremberg between 1491 and 1492_
_Nuremberg was one of the largest cities in the Holy Roman Empire in the 1490s_
@@daveofyorkshire301 Thank you, that you explain some German facts, to a German, which was allways the top in his class in geography and history...
The country of Asia......... WOW. Just the fact they can't point to their own country is disgusting
Your disrespect is disgusting. From my point of view it is disgusting that you dont know what 心不全 means.
My grandmother, whom I adored, always told me that "knowledge is power", which makes it possible to discuss things and not look like an uneducated person! however, my grandmother, who was very cultured, was a housekeeper in an institution for disabled people (but with a beautiful library in her house). that's the difference!!! from France
I believe this 100% I've been to the US 5 times and the standard of basic knowledge is close to zero. They are not interested in the world outside the US, I was in Ohio and met some people in RV campsite. I was talking with them about the world, and they said they had never been outside their County not state county. I asked why not, and they said why we have everything here. They were not sure where England was.
Someone once told me that England was not a country but a nation. Huh? So I gave him a list of countries, and to tell me which ones were nations and which ones were countries. He couldn't (or wouldn't) answer.
@@MisterHowzat Well England is a nation and part of the country of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Since “country” usually means a “sovereign nation-state with their own foreign policy.”
@@peterbruells28 Then why couldn't that person answer my question?
And here's a question for you: What's the difference between "nation" and "country". (Hint: "nation" has more to do with people than national/geographical/political borders.)
And here's something interesting to consider: the UK is a country that consists of 4 countries (or what I prefer to call "country states"): England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Well Americans vote for 80 yers old dudes as President.. 😂 Name 10 countrys that do that... 😮
At 67 your automatically reatierd in Sweden... We havent ever had a Primeminister thats 80..😅❤
They have all the money men behind them.
I am 83 years old, my education was completed many decades ago. I did one of those on-line geography "tests" a week or so ago, where they show you the "outlines" of 70 different countries and you have to identify them by name and location. I got 68 out of 70 right, and one of my two "misses" was caused by me clicking too soon. The average American is likely to point to Australia or Patagonia when asked to identify Greenland on a world map! American education, especially at primary and even secondary level, is extremely basic and seems to be mostly concerned with teaching kids American history in minute detail and sing the national anthem or properly fold and kiss flags - if Trumptidumpty's behaviour is anything to go by. It's just ludicrous how completely ignorant so many Americans remain about the rest of the world. Some of that gets corrected at some damn fine (but expensive) universities scattered around the US, but the fact remains that only a small minority of people gets to attend such universities.
I'm 68, why am I not surprised at your result. BTW you did a lot better than myself, ha!
I am 60 and i think i can identify 97 %of all
I saw a video of that Jimmy Kimmel show, and some other commenters said the kid who aced the test was Canadian.
Haha I wouldn't doubt that.
yep aren't Americans worried that the Canadians are smarter than they are? NOPE
You should react to the one where they just ask the passersby to point to America on the map. Yes - that's ALL they have to do: point to their own home country.
Is it only obvious to me..
Right in front with a unique SHAPE.
All on its own...
AUSTRALIA. 🇦🇺
Greenland isn't a country, it's a territory belonging to Denmark
It all depends what you mean by “country”. Wales is a country, but it is a constituent part of the UK. Greenland is a constituent part of the Kingdom of Denmark, but it is autonomous from the government of, and separate legally from the country of, Denmark. Denmark is part of the EU, but Greenland is not. Greenland is certainly not a possession of Denmark, nor is it a “territory”.
Some years ago, my cousin who lives in LA showed me his daughter’s geography book. It showed the USA as twice the size it is and in the centre of the map with the other much smaller countries surrounding it. My chin dropped to somewhere in the region of my navel!
@@allenwilliams1306People usually say "UN member state in its own right" but that would rule out several recognised countries, including Taiwan and the Vatican.
@@neuralwarp People would therefore be wrong, wouldn't they? It is very easy for the English to realize that the meaning of the English word “country” is nothing to do with being a sovereign state, because England is not a sovereign state, but quite definitely is a country, like Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales, all four of which make up the state that is the United Kingdom. Foreigners often make the mistake of thinking that the UK is a country. It is not. We have, by contrast, no problem in recognizing that Greenland, the Faeroe Isles, and Denmark are three separate countries within one kingdom and one state.
Just goes to prove “folks are dumb where we come from”. US education system proven to be truly amazing yet again.
I remember seeing a similar show to this years ago where the presenter asked random people in the street what they thought about the war with Afghanistan at the time. Every one of them said the US should wipe Afghanistan off the map but when asked to point out even an approximate location of Afghanistan on a world map, none of those people pointed to anywhere near the Middle East. One woman pointed to Australia and another pointed to western Europe 😮. Scary indeed.
Same with the election of 2016 where you repeatedly heard “what about Benghazi” my response was can you show me Benghazi on a map? If not go educate yourself and maybe you will stop embarrassing yourself.
Afghanistan isn't in the Middle East
I asked this to my american friend, who is well educated, well travelled and has lived in Europe, he absolutely aced this test. I made him stop after country 100 or so. ( he's brilliant, not kidding)
In return he asked me to name all 50 US states,.... i only got to 43 and felt bad. After that i took the US citizen test online, and passed!!! just to piss him off. 😂 ( fyi i did study a whole afternoon for that, so not out of nothing, those questions about the legislative branch very few europeans would get right without studying) the rest was pretty much knowledge i already had.
43 isn't bad. And I don't think you can compare naming states in a country with having knowledge about the world. The latter is a bit more important to know I would say..
Let my try without Googling:
Oregon
Washington
California
Texas
Nevada
Colorado
North dakota
South dakota
Idaho
Olklahama
Kansas
Arkansas
Alaska
Illinois
Michigan
North Carolina
South Carolina
Louisiana
Tennessee
Florida
Pensylvainia
New York
Virginia
West Virginia
Hawaii
Maine
Massachusetts
Rhode Island
New Jersey
Maryland
Missouri
Mississippi
Kentucky
Minnesota
Iowa
Wisconsin
Ohio
Indiana
Georgia
Alabama
Connecticut
Vermont
New Hampshire
I cant remember anymore and Ive counted, its the same as yours. We are both 7 states short.
Edit: Arizona and Delaware, now im 5 short.
To be fair, naming all the states of another federal nation is far more difficult than naming 100 nations in the world. States usually do not appear internationally on their own, but under the label of their nation. If you don't have any reason to delve deeper into the administrative details of a nation, it's more of a hobbyist's knowledge.
Also, I doubt that your buddy would be able to list the states of _all_ federal republics worldwide. If so, kudos, he's a real crack.
Dont know if he can but i'll ask 😂. Would not be surprised, ...really. He's a real life Mike Ross ( Suits)
You should ask your US friend to name all of the Counties in the UK; which would be a similar test to naming all 50 US States, though there are 92 UK Counties, so there is that.
The level of ignorance is astonishing. Saying that, I doubt they’d have any problem naming all the members of the Kardashian family.
Priorities.
@@ge2623 😂
Who?
Oh well, at least I'm better at geography.
I had a friend many years ago thought he could get a job teaching at Oxford Uni England and fly home for the weekends to Australia.
Needless to say I utterly flabbergasted 🫤
Not being good at geography is one thing, but not being able to point out the country you're in is a little embarrassing
You'd think they would know where Canada or Mexico was at least? These are people that have presumably had access to Google Maps on their phone for years now
Don't expect to much ... They don't even know the US, cause this would be the easiest answer to this question, right? 😂😂😂
@@juwen7908 Crazy
Having 'Instant access to knowledge' means you do not ever have to actually learn anything ...
@@alfnoakes392 only in America the rest of the world wants to learn
This is unbelievable - to be so thick as to not even to recognise their own country 😂
Well, there's not an app, snapchat or tik tok video for it.
i would think these shows are fake, but i've asked people similar questions and they've had no clue.
Obviously they only keep the good clips though.
South Africa's over here somewhere (points to West Africa.)
Doh.
Yeah but in america they're the whole world...cos everythin revolves around america..right?.lol
I enjoyed that more than I thought I would 😂. Well done guys
The problem is that Americans are taught that the USA is the centre of the universe.
well they did create everything from fire to the wheel to erm internet ................. they have invented very little they just think they have, hell even modern era stuff is British invented internet and tvs etc
A great parlour game is to have an outline of Europe
with no borders marked
then ask folks to draw in where the countries are
That is quite funny.
The best thing is the quizmaster needs to have an overlap of the actual countries.
In my classroom this was last day of term type stuff and
I had an epidiascope so the students could do it on paper and
I had an overlay.
Even more interesting would be to have maps dated every 50 years or so, going back 500 years. 'Europe' as we know it is a very recent construct.
Hurrah for epidiascopes! I thought they were all eaten by the overhead projectors. Good to know they are still roaming free.
@@mgregory2430
They were eaten by the overhead projectors
My mother at school in the 1940s in Britain
had epidiascopes and they were bulky items
but when I was at school in the 1970s
it was all overhead projectors.
I was looking into an epidiascope
for my language classroom
and found that a strong light and a camera
on a stand worked well and there are
specialist items
They are brilliant and you don't need the
acetate sheets to write on
JUST paper
Australia would stand out as the almost continent sized country, I’d have thought.
The US citizens suffer from the handicap of their country never having an empire. Us baby boomer British kids went through school during the break-up of the British empire. Having once conquered a quarter of the globe, knowing countries and capitals was part of both our history and geography. Also the US is more a continent in style, and so the people are more self contained, and do not need to relate to the rest of the world in the same way as European citizens do.
Would have thought Australia by it's shape would give it away and surely they could point out the US.
Sorry, as a Brit, I couldn't watch all of this and had to stop half way through. It's too embarrassing watching American adults try to answer questions that most children from the rest of the world could answer.
I'm a European. I can name hundreds of countries. Why can't Americans? Over to you Americans................
Having visited the US many times it always amazes me how insular Americans are. American news programmes seem to forget the rest of the world exists, I was over there in November 1989 and the collapse of the Berlin wall, one of the biggest events of that (and any other) year was about the fourth or fifth story on the main news channels, as if it was some kind of afterthought.
"I never learned to read, and I never learned to cook.
Why should I bother when I look like I look?
I know lots of people are smarter than me,
But I have this philosophy:
So what?
'Cause I'm a blonde, yeah, yeah, yeah."
(Yeah, I know: not all brunettes are smart, either!) 😀
As a natural born American I lived in the mid-west for 60+ yrs, except for many trips abroad, to learn what the world is really like. When I returned home, tried to talk to other Americans about my (wonderful) experiences abroad, nothing but blank stares, looks of confusion. Most tuned out, walked away after a minute or two. The American mindset has always been, we live in the greatest country in the world, we have everything here, so, I don't need to waste good American money on traveling to other countries, when all their people want to move to the U.S. to be like us. They don't even have TV over there. YES, a American actually said that to a visiting foreigner. Americans truly believe, unless it pays well, they don't need to know it. So, who cares about other countries, we certainly don't!
That's so nice of you to stick up for your fellow UNEDUCATED !!! You did pretty good !! 👍🏼👍🏿👍🏻✌🌲🌻🇺🇦💛💙
Hey guys, im not American and i know flipping the map is a little different but this is sad..they could at least recognise their own country...im.sure this is not a representation of American but this is embarassing to watch...how are people so dumb??
The boy at the end was a tourist. hahaha
You'd think Australia would be pretty obvious. Americans have no idea of where in the world they are.
Sorry to be so negative, but I came to the conclusion many years ago on a trip to Florida that your average American knows only what happens in America and the rest of the world doesn't seem to exist
I would like to say that I’m surprised with this, but I’m not at all surprised.
America has always had this thing with isolationism, only getting involved when they have had to, don’t get me wrong, happy they are on our side.
Merry Christmas to our American friends from the UK.
Well, Americans; there´s a whole world outside the U.S. borders...
Wow! I mean most even couldn't even find the USA! Talk about not being able to find your ar$e with both hands 🙂
My god... i'd ask you name any country and I'll show you where it is on the map.
Have they heard of Mexico 🇲🇽?
By the way when you said the African countries you said Condo there is not such country its Congo with G !
Every kid should have a globe in their home and spend a few minutes a day looking at it and familiarizing themselves with world geography.
Warum? Um bei blödsinnigen Quizshows abzuräumen? Lernt Mathe, Physik, Chemie. Dies braucht man im Leben und nicht Erdkunde.
Nobody watching in the UK will be surprised by this.
Kudos for the Midwest couple 🙂 You are not the stupid Americans 🙂 You do have at least some knowledge of geography! On this Kimmel-test it was a bit tricky as they presented the global map in an unorthodox way.
what's tricky about that?
That was part of the test! Never assume, always check before answering.
It shouldn't make any difference how the map is displayed. If you learnt basic shapes, i.e. Triangle, Square and Circle, and they were always in that order. Then they were presented to you in a different order, you should still be able to discern the different shapes. A map although it has more complex shapes, is the same thing, it is just spatial awareness and pattern recognition. It is like saying that you will only recognise a banana if you are holding it in your left hand, if you hold it in your right hand it looks like a pineapple.
Anyway, they only show the people who make a fool out of themselves, it isn't a true representation of a countries intelligence, the lad at the end proves that. He was probably the best and youngest they found that day, there were quite likely a load of people that were in between the "idiots" they showed and the smart kid at the end, but then they wouldn't show them because it makes crap tv.
No matter how it was presented, flipped, upside down etc, if you know the basic outlines of continents, you should be able to re-orientate. If one doesn't even know the outlines of continents, don't even ask that same person the countries in that continent. Easiest to identify is first the country Australia, then with NZ besides it. Countries that are small and clustered together in a certain continent will be of course harder than bigger ones and those on the edges of each continent.
Yeah, even upside-down shouldn't make a difference.
To be fair when I look at a map North and South America are on the left and Europe)/Asia etc on the right. That was probably deliberately done
I understand but that's not an excuse. The kid definitely wasn't confused by that and anyone who knows some geography (even vaguely) won't be either. What if they showed them a globe? Would they go "I've only studied geography on a flat map so I can't name any country."?
You normally see the map from the Atlantic side.
To see it from the Pacific side is refreshing.
Yes, that form is less common. However, it wasn’t even upside down. That would throw me off, but the idea that you can’t find any country you supposedly know because of this is just laughable.
Well folks, that's how Trump gets elected.
It's not flipped, but I know what you mean. That going to be my question, since we Brits are familiar with being in the centre, as Al Murray explained. I guess you use the same map with zero longitude in the middle.
Yes the UK is always in the middle of because of Greenwich.
@@grahamfrear9270 also because the British navy plotted alot of ancient maps, and were voted as the centre from the rest of the world governments at the time
Poor old Yanks, they have no hope...... Bless 'em
I love your show Jimmy but this is not a laughing matter.
They ask if they can name any country on this map,
But non of them points to the most obvious one in the middle of the map,
Australia, the smallest continent and one of the largest countries on Earth, lying between the Pacific and Indian oceans in the Southern Hemisphere.
🇦🇺🤣👍🏼
Love the Welsh flag behind you guys, most people in Europe would not be able to point to Wales on a map
Wrong
@@Freiya2011 😀 but what of the other 750 million?
If you want to test your knowledge of countries
there is a quiz where you get a country name
and have to click on the appropriate part of the map
You could do it as a competition between yourselves
see how you do on Europe.
Yes, search for seterra.
As a Canadian I’m really insulted
Saved by a 12 year old - make him president.
It’s a sad reflection on the state of the USA!
It was great to see that last young boy knowing so much more than any of the young adults who came before him. It's not just the woeful ignorance exhibited by many in videos like this, but the apparent lack of curiosity and desire to understand the world that has contributed to that ignorance. I find it sad that even with resources like Google at their fingertips many don't take the opportunity to educate themselves more widely to understand the world they live in better. One problem, I believe, is that the attention span of many younger people is noticeably shorter these days, and the retention of learned information seems poorer even among young adults. Internet and smart phone technologies have so much of real educational value to offer and yet people let themselves be distracted and preoccupied instead with celebrity culture, TikToks and other vacuous forms of social media. It's called "dumbing down"...
He was probably a Canadian there on holiday.
Name a country in Africa. This is off the top of my head: Egypt. Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, Chad, Sudan, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Madagascar, Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, Lesotho, Mauretania, Senegal, Namibia, Botswana.
Still missed a lot. But I’d say that’s about 2/3rd to 3/4ths.
burkina faso, niger , zambia mozambique, zimbabwe
I have a teapot smarter than most of these people.
Don't feel too bad. The 16-year-olds at my school would fail just as badly. I've lost count of how many times I've heard a teacher say, 'Africa isn't a country, it's a continent.' It's an English Pupil Referral Unit, so we're not talking about a high level of attainment or engagement, but it's genuinely not just Americans; just that the US probably has a lower level of geographic knowledge for a 'higher' level of overall education.
There is a quiz show in Britain called Richard Osman's House of Games and one of the rounds is called 'Where is Kazakhstan?' and the contestants have to place a marker on a map where a place or landmark is or something happened and half the time they get even the country wrong! Mind you, at least they have heard of the countries they got wrong!
Well done, your knowledge is equivalent to a UK 12 year old!
That last kid may have been a British tourist. It's about right for a 12 year old.
@@KenFullman Possibly Canadian by the accent.
@@Thurgosh_OGIt would fit with the home counties in England but insuffiecient data to make a distinction.
The two that get me are Greenland and Australia that are both pretty big and isolated on the map.
Pardon
I wouldn't worry too much about your fellow Americans. I suspect only the hopeless ones made the edit for comedic value and then the kid to put them all to shame. I reckon the orientation of the map was just to bait the flat earthers.
What to say!?
OK. Just one word - Unbelievable!
Embarrassing. Very!
I feel so sorry for americans - but then again, the rest of us. It’s possible that you vote for Trump again.
How do these people get through life never mind get a job
I feel so sorry for all these people.... se in th euk we have something here called education, its carried out in a place called a school. we have hundreds of them all over our little island, we could lend you some if you need them to help you learn your countries.... OMG.
I'm reasonably ok with Geography although I know most of the Countries in South America I don't know them all and same with Africa & Asia but I would say that I could name more than 50% of Countries around the Globe! :) GB
You both are better than me at geography. Also I can never remember all the country's in Europe in one go. I get to 15 -20 and thats about it. Too many to remember in one go 🙂👌
Frightening ignorance.
As a Brit who wasn't into Geography either, I could probably only name as many as you two did, maybe a couple more. But no way I could name the ones in South America like that kid. I bet he can point and name all the states in the USA as well
I get the impression he was a 'ringer' brought in because he has an encyclopedic knowledge of country names/shapes.
@@alfnoakes392 these videos are probably all ringers, ask 100 people and use the 10 who have no clue.
My guess is there were quite a few people that answered this no prob - but they don't include their answers because its not good tv.
I just love you two guys, well done with your answers, but you have to admit that with the exception of the young boy the rest of it is nothing short of frightening.
I have never been to Jillie, but my cat's name is Jillie! Jillie Vanillie in fact! :) A shy meow from Switzerland. :)
This version of the world map is just how it's often depicted in Australia, with Australia in the centre.
Not sure but that is not the representation we have in UK, or Europe I think.
Generally UK is in the centre.
Not sure if that may have caused the people an issue, it shouldn't, but clutching at straws here.
I think it might also be rabbit in headlights, cause, no-one said USA, after which I would expect Mexico and Canada to be possible.
I'm guessing, I'm asking, how would Americans normally expect to see world map? but thinking normally they wouldn't.
It's not sad that a "college graduate " couldn't find "ANY OTHER COUNTRY".
The real word is "Pathetic ".
Stop anyone in Europe and they would answer at least 5, at least.
Being an isolated large country like USA prevents this knowledge. Canada above, Mexico below. We are surrounded by other countries so our awareness of them is obvious and beneficial.
In Europe we are used to being surrounded by different countries, languages and cultures.
It's disgraceful that US citizens either aren't taught or aren't paying attention in school, but the knowledge can be picked up/reinforced by extracurricular things like Risk and video games where real countries are identified--I spent a lot of time playing the old Uncharted Waters series and recognize portions of the map at least. And no matter how much certain elements in our society "love the uneducated", their rah-rah jingoism should make them want US citizens to at least know our OWN country.
I wonder if older people might have done better on that quiz, not because we're smarter, but because we learned geography in an age when you couldn't just Google stuff. Presumably, geography is still being taught in schools.
My guess would be that students in later generations "round file" the information after the test because they don't want to waste mental resources on stuff they can just look up.
I read that one of the smartest people who ever lived, Albert Einstein, refused to commit his own phone number to memory because he could just look it up. This was back in the days of telephone directories when everyone's number was public information.
These videos are heavily cherry picked, that's why they focus so much on a handful of people, you only need to find one ignorant person out of a hundred people to make the subject of the skit. 99% of Americans would have no issue pointing to the US, Canada and Mexico on a map even if they didn't know any others and most could at least pick out Australia, Russia and the UK at the very least
I used to be able to name every country. But Yugoslavia and Czehoslovakia split up, Germany reunited and a bunch of others changed their names ... so no longer.
To be fair, the US has 50 states and their education system has to allow for learning about that instead. So it's kind of understandable and forgivable that their foreign geopolitical knowledge would differ from what some non-US residents would expect
Nothing is reversed...... they just put the Pacific Ocean into the middle of the map instead of the Atlantic Ocean...