Are Americans Bad At Geography?

As an American, I don't mean to offend or look down upon any fellow Americans with this article, and I am simply trying to (unbiasedly) analyze the facts and come to an answer to the question.

Before I really got interested in geography and geopolitics, I never really thought about things outside my own nation, the United States. I always heard on the news about famines in an obscure country called "Yemen", ongoing wars in faraway places like "Afghanistan" and "Libya", and large protests in distant nations like "India" and "Nigeria", but I never really gave them a second thought. It was only when I watched a movie called "The Day After Tomorrow" that I realized how dumb I was about geography. The film is about a sudden, global ice age that was brought about by human climate change. The part that really stuck with me was a forgettable piece of information, in which there were three, gigantic snow storms that were hovering over Canada, Scotland, and Siberia respectively. It was at that moment that I realized that I didn't know where Scotland was! I later discovered that it was located within the United Kingdom, north of England, but it stuck with me how a region that should have been obvious as to where it was, was not able to be recognized by me.

So I began doing some research online, and eventually found some quizzes that I was able to use to hone my skills. After doing a couple, I found a quiz called "Countries of the World Quiz" on a site called "Jetpunk". I found the quiz to be much easier to use than other quizzes I found, and discovered that it contained other quizzes I could try as well, and that is how I grew to be the geography nerd and devoted Jetpunker that I am today! But, I never really forgot the day when I couldn't remember Scotland, so I jumped back onto the Internet, and found several articles about America's knowledge of geography, or rather, its lack of it, and that is what I now present to you!

Before we get started, remember: I am going to talk about the AVERAGE American here; I'm sure all Americans here on Jetpunk are far above average, so this is probably not going to apply to you.

So, are Americans bad at geography?

The short answer is, yes, Americans are generally not that well-versed in geography. Of course, that is not the end of the story. First, let's look at the data.

Based on data collected in the 2014 National Assessment of Educational Progress, 48% of 8th grade Americans showed "basic" knowledge of geography. 25% showed "below basic" knowledge, 24% were "proficient", and 3% were "advanced".

Although I'm not sure, I would guesstimate that "basic" would be pretty equal to being able to identify where countries like China, the US, or Russia are on a map, while "proficient" would be able to locate places like Tanzania on a map.

Using this data, we can project that about a quarter of Americans are "bad" at geography. Another half are suboptimal, and probably can use a lot more knowledge. Therefore, from this survey alone, we can say that only slightly more than 25% of middle school Americans are "good" at geography.

Of course, one survey isn't good enough. In another study by National Geographic in 2006, only 37% of young Americans could find Iraq on a map, 48% thought most of the Indian population was "Muslim", when the majority is actually Hindu, 75% couldn't find Israel on a map, and half couldn't find New York City (the largest American city!)!

The latter study shows the American population being worse at geography than the first one did. The most surprising is probably the New York City factoid, given that one would think that a nation's citizens would know where its largest city is. It is also interesting that Americans can't locate Iraq or Israel, given that the US troops were fighting in Iraq, and Israel was (and still is) a major US ally.

Finally, in another National Assessment of Educational Progress performed in 2010, statistics showed that high school seniors were worse at geography than elementary and middle schoolers. This means that, weirdly, Americans got progressively worse at geographical knowledge as they grew up.

I would cite two main reasons: no opportunities and disinterest.

A report from the Government Accountability Office found that social studies teachers spend 10 percent or less of their time on geography (for any non-Americans who don't know what social studies is, its a subject which combines history, civics, economics, geography, and other societal topics into one). Few states also require a geography course in middle or high school, meaning there's even less reason to focus on geography in teaching.

A possibility for why geography is so rarely taught is because of a lack of resources. All elementary school teachers teach reading, math, science, and social studies, without students moving to different classes for each subject, as opposed to middle or high school. However, math, science, and reading are required for students to be tested on, while geography is (usually) not. Therefore, school officials often prioritize the first three, leaving negligible funds for the teaching of geography.

Meanwhile, interest in geography is also quite low. In the same National Geographic study in 2006 that I mentioned earlier, fewer than 30% thought that it was necessary to learn where the countries they hear on the news are located.

However, it might not even be that interest in geography has to be too high; rather, the abundance and ease of access to information on the Internet might be the problem. Due to sites like Wikipedia, and devices like the GPS being so convenient, it allows people to find an answer to a question, or be able to do something, without learning something else in the process, or being motivated to.

Here's an example: if I wanted to find out about Khartoum, Sudan, I could just go on Wikipedia and find out: "Khartoum is the capital of Sudan. With a population of 5,274,321, its metropolitan area is the largest in Sudan. Khartoum is located at the confluence of the White Nile, flowing north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile, flowing west from Lake Tana in Ethiopia." There, I learned a bunch of info about Khartoum, without even hearing about it being in Africa. However, if there was no Internet, I would probably have to go in an atlas to find it: I would discover that it is located in the Northeastern African nation of Sudan, directly south of Egypt, and somewhat north of Ethiopia. I might be surprised to discover that it is so close to Egypt, and might want to learn if it had anything to do with ancient Egypt. I would later discover that it was once inhabited by the Nubians, has many numerous pyramids, and other tidbits of information that might spark some deeper searching.

My point is, that with the ease of access to information we have now, it sort of prevents us from discovering anything else on the way that might spark some interest into further research into geography. Reading about the tension between Israeli settlements and Palestinian settlements on the news is interesting, but few would actually try to go into why there is so much fighting between them. If people actually had to go search for the news about it, they might discover the history behind Israel's island of Judaism in a predominantly Muslim region, and therefore would learn about geography.

So far in this blog, I've gone into depth about how and why Americans are bad at geography, but are they the only ones? Is the American stereotype of being dismal at geography so prevalent it eclipses other statistics?

Well... not really. While there are some who don't perform that well in geography, the majority of the world is better at geography than the average American.

A 2002 Roper poll found the United States ranked second-to-last in geographic knowledge out of nine countries, right before Mexico. However, given that the American GDP is 20 times larger than Mexico's, it's not really something to be proud of, and I would rather congratulate Mexico for being able to get a similar ranking in geographic knowledge on such a lower budget.

Well, this was quite a long blog, and it took quite a bit of research. However, I think, given the data, I can come to the (hopefully) complete conclusion that Americans, indeed, have a bit to learn in geography.

However, we're on Jetpunk, where the average American Jetpunker is much more proficient at geography than the average American is in real life. So I think I can say, with decent certainty, that this blog will never be read by any of the Americans I have described above. However, if you are one of those people (whether American or not), I hope to see you on this site, and hopefully you'll learn a lot more geography!

Thank you so much for reading this blog, as it means a lot to me. As I said before, I never meant to offend or look down upon anyone; if I did, I sincerely apologize, and I ask if I can add/remove anything from here that might fix it. Again, thank you, and have a great day!