Only one out of six Americans know where Ukraine is.

[BillyB]

Even with Ukraine in the news a lot lately, only one out of six Americans can accurately locate Ukraine on the map. Americans must be very comfortable with their lives to have so little interest in other countries of the world. There's over a dozen people thinking America IS Ukraine.


http://news.yahoo.com/less-americans-know-ukraine-more-want-involved-194456704.html

[jone]

Isn't UK made up of England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland?

[Dewed]

I always hated European geography.. comparatively small countries with impossible to remember names and continually changing borders.. still even I know. while Northern Ireland is part of the UK  Southern Ireland isn't 

I'd be curious how many in the 2k+ sample set were high school & college grads.. Pretty certain those figures would be even more disappointing

[Hammer2722]

Hell, there are some Americans who when told that I live in Washington, they are thinking DC. Some don't even know that there is a Washington State!!!!

[SANDRO43]

Isn't UK made up of England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland?

The United Kingdom includes England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, as reflected in the Union Jack by the crosses of St. George,  St. Andrew and St. Patrick:

Scotland was an independent kingdom that gave England a new line of kings (the Stewarts/Stuarts) after the Plantagenets and Tudors, and therefore the two were merged into a wider realm, as was the case with Ireland.

Celtic Cornwall was conquered by the Normans, Celtic Wales by the English King Edward I in 1282, so they were already part and parcel with England before GB/UK came into being .

[Larry1]

Hell, there are some Americans who when told that I live in Washington, they are thinking DC. Some don't even know that there is a Washington State!!!!

A friend of mine moved from the state of New Mexico to Florida some years ago.  For some readers who are not familiar with US laws, if you move from one state in the US to another state you don't have to take a driver's test in the new state if you have a driver's license from the previous state.  He went to the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles to get a Florida driver's license.  He presented his New Mexico license to the clerk and she told him that he would have to take a driver's test.  He told her that he shouldn't have to take a new driving test because he had a New Mexico driver's license.  She said one doesn't need to take a driver's test if one possessed a license issued by another state of the US but not a license from another country, obviously mistaking the state of New Mexico with the country Mexico.

As for one out of six people here being able to pick out Ukraine on a map, I'm surprised even one out of six could pick it out.  I've seen the results of these types of tests for identifying various countries and the results show that most people here do very poorly on them.

[Faux Pas]

A friend of mine moved from the state of New Mexico to Florida some years ago.  For some readers who are not familiar with US laws, if you move from one state in the US to another state you don't have to take a driver's test in the new state if you have a driver's license from the previous state.  He went to the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles to get a Florida driver's license.  He presented his New Mexico license to the clerk and she told him that he would have to take a driver's test.  He told her that he shouldn't have to take a new driving test because he had a New Mexico driver's license.  She said one doesn't need to take a driver's test if one possessed a license issued by another state of the US but not a license from another country, obviously mistaking the state of New Mexico with the country Mexico.

As for one out of six people here being able to pick out Ukraine on a map, I'm surprised even one out of six could pick it out.  I've seen the results of these types of tests for identifying various countries and the results show that most people here do very poorly on them.

As Bill Engvall would say "Here's your sign"

It's not at all surprising to me that only one of six could locate Ukraine on a map in the U.S.. One could pick any number of countries located on another continent and get the same results or worse from this generation.

Last night on Bill O'Reilly on the Waters segment, Waters went to a Miley Cyrus concert, hung out in the parking lot with pics of Biden, Kerry and Putin and literally most all could not recognize any of them. What was even more absurd was about half of them were guessing wrong and "pretended" that they were right and knew it.

[CDW]

Isn't UK made up of England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland?

Not Ireland!!   Northern Ireland - yes 

[CDW]

Even with Ukraine in the news a lot lately, only one out of six Americans can accurately locate Ukraine on the map. Americans must be very comfortable with their lives to have so little interest in other countries of the world. There's over a dozen people thinking America IS Ukraine.


http://news.yahoo.com/less-americans-know-ukraine-more-want-involved-194456704.html

Many Colombians including my ex-girlfriends do not know where England is lol   !!!

[cojack]

Looks very suspect to me.  I think this "poll" was put in as an ad wall over content the users really wanted.  As such many of them just clicked on it to get rid of it.  Notice the nearly straight line going down Russia to China.  Edge of a tablet or where a mouse might be nearest to a scroll bar.

Give someone a negative motivation and they will screw your results like this.

[stilllooking]

Not surprised by the result.

Remember when in high school in the US my fellow students could not locate the country I am from on a map (about half did not even point to the right continent).

Of course, it's not surprising seeing how the Geography teacher at that school to this day still believes The Hague is the capital of The Netherlands. I stupidly answered Amsterdam on the test and got a B instead of an A because that was wrong. As a Dutch person I really should have known better....

[GQBlues]

Hell, think how many posters here still say 'the Ukraine'? Folks the world over still think 'Jew' represents a nationality and that 'Africa' is a country.

[ML]

Hell, there are some Americans who when told that I live in Washington, they are thinking DC. Some don't even know that there is a Washington State!!!!

How stupid they are.

Even I know that Washington DC only encompasses a small part of the state of Washington . . . specifically the Direct Center.

[Turboguy]

Hell, think how many posters here still say 'the Ukraine'? Folks the world over still think 'Jew' represents a nationality and that 'Africa' is a country.

I have noticed a lot of the newscasters on Network TV saying "the" Ukraine.  You would think someone like that would get it right.  I did notice Diane Sawyer saying it wrong the first time and right the second so I think someone corrected her.  Hopefully those network newscasters did take the time to look on the map and figure out where it was even if they don't know what it is called.

[Strider]

More properly it is the "kraina" (Polish spelling or "krajina" in Southern Slavic), a slavic word for a border or inland province.  The word "ukraina" means in or from the border or inland province, which could be interpreted as a "provincial" person.  The semantic issue is whether the kraina is a region populated by different ethnic groups, or if Ukrainians are a distinct group of people.

The events which are unfolding concern that issue and the fate of Stalin's creation of Greater Ukraine, i.e., can the culturally Russian East and historically more European West of the present state hold together..

I have noticed a lot of the newscasters on Network TV saying "the" Ukraine.  You would think someone like that would get it right.  I did notice Diane Sawyer saying it wrong the first time and right the second so I think someone corrected her.  Hopefully those network newscasters did take the time to look on the map and figure out where it was even if they don't know what it is called.

[die_cast]

Only one out of six Americans know where Ukraine is.

Actually, I'm surprised! My guess would be "One out of 6000 Americans know where Ukraine is". 

[Turboguy]

Actually, I'm surprised! My guess would be "One out of 6000 Americans know where Ukraine is". 

That might be a little high.  I think now probably 1 in 6000 is Ukrainian. 

I do agree with the idea that most Americans are geographically challenged.  When we hire an office person some knowledge of geography is helpful so we do a short test of 8 questions one of which tests their geographical acumen.

The question we ask is "Name three states that start with the letter C"

Quite frequently the answer we get is something on the order of  1.  California  2.  Chicago  3.  Canada

[Dewed]

I agree Americans are geographically challenged. but at least a small part of that is understandable.. Geographically schools as I remember were focused on getting the 50 states and their capitals of a fairly large country imprinted into your skull by 2nd grade. Hell I nearly graduated before I was formally educated about Washington DC being a commonwealth, or why Puerto Rico might become the 51st state or where the 49th and 50th came from.

Don't blame the American citizens as a whole, blame their education system, their parenting and the 2-3 previous closed minded, somewhat isolationist generations. Also consider we are talking about a foreign part of the world from their perspective with a history of fluctuating borders and non Anglo names.. difficult for us/US, majority of non-Slovs to remember.

I am not saying American students are rocket scientists, but how many Ukrainians know where Palau is, or know the capital of Alberta Canada for example? and then how many would suddenly know where it is if they were invaded by N. Korea? (and yes I realize Alberta would be quite a stretch for N. Korea)

ps California, Connecticut and Colorado .. while no googling was involved.. I did misspell Connecticut.. I hope that doesn't count against me.

[die_cast]

That might be a little high.  I think now probably 1 in 6000 is Ukrainian. 

And they exactly know where Ukraine is. 
But I agree, that might be a little high, but still 1 out of 6 seems unbelievable to me. 

[Muzh]

Actually, I'm surprised! My guess would be "One out of 6000 Americans know where Ukraine is". 

Make it more like Juan in a million.
 
BTW, at yesterday's tv appearance Putin stated: After next month, no one will be able to find Ukraine in a map.

[Larry1]

I do agree with the idea that most Americans are geographically challenged.  When we hire an office person some knowledge of geography is helpful so we do a short test of 8 questions one of which tests their geographical acumen.

The question we ask is "Name three states that start with the letter C"

Quite frequently the answer we get is something on the order of  1.  California  2.  Chicago  3.  Canada

Most people who learn some geography in school tend to forget quite a bit of it.  I saw an example of this last Sunday. My early teenaged daughter mentioned something about people not knowing many state capitals.  She had learned these about five years ago.  I told her that I thought she could probably still name over half the state capitals. She loves a challenge, so she asked me to quiz her on them.  She was able to name exactly half - 25, with the assistance of two or three hints.

And they exactly know where Ukraine is. 
But I agree, that might be a little high, but still 1 out of 6 seems unbelievable to me. 

One out of six seems incredible to me too.

[CanadaMan]

I have noticed a lot of the newscasters on Network TV saying "the" Ukraine.  You would think someone like that would get it right. 

The mainstream media in Canada continue to make this same mistake over and over.

Ignorance is partly to blame, but we must not forget 'The Beatles effect' too.

The Beatles, the Ukraine, makes sense right? 

Over and out from The Canada.

[BillyB]

The question we ask is "Name three states that start with the letter C"

Quite frequently the answer we get is something on the order of  1.  California  2.  Chicago  3.  Canada

You think that's bad, in the video below they ask Americans to name a country that starts with "U." One person said Yugoslavia, another Utah, and another Utopia. Some people couldn't answer. The interviewer asked them "How about United States of America?"

[tfcrew]

This is a really sad video...

http://www.nbcnews.com/video/ronan-farrow-daily/54929913#54929913