there are between one and two billion Americans? who knew?

U.S. Youth Geographically Clueless; Can't Find Iraq ... or New York!

According to this article from Lebanon's Dar Al-Hayat, a recent study reveals that after years of war, most young Americans can't find Iraq or Afghanistan on the map. What's more, roughly half cannot locate New York or Hawaii.

Translated By Aja Ishmael

May 4, 2005

London: It's hard to imagine that the Americans, who have an administration that doesn't hesitate to express its opinion in global affairs - whether large or small - without exception, don't understand the world, don't know their place in it, and are not familiar with geography, whether outside the United States or inside it.

A study carried out by Roper Public Relations in New York, funded by National Geographic magazine during the period from December 17, 2005 to January 20, 2006, makes it clear that American young people are unable, for example, to locate Iraq on a map. This, despite the spread of American forces in that country since March 2003 and the wide press coverage that events there have had for over three years.

The study, which included 510 youths with ages ranging between 18 and 24, revealed that 63 percent didn't know Iraq's location on the world map, while 70 percent couldn't locate Israel or Iran. Ninety percent didn't know the location of Afghanistan, where the United States has been waging a war against terrorists for the past five years, and from which American lands were struck on September 11.

As for Indonesia, which was struck by a tsunami in 2004, arousing global concern for the victims long thereafter, three-fourths of those asked didn't know where on the map to find it, just as they didn't know that most of its residents are Muslim and that it is the largest Muslim country in the world.

Only 46 percent knew that Sudan is an African country, while 20 percent considered it Asian, 10 percent thought it European, and 5 percent placed it in South America. Two percent said that Sudan was in Australia and one percent said it was in the South Pole. This, after demonstrations organized in 15 American cities just days ago to protest the deteriorating human rights situation in Darfur, Western Sudan.

American ignorance of the world around them might lead one to believe that they are instead focusing their attention on their own vast country. The study, however, showed their ignorance in this area as well. Half of those asked could not find the State of New York on a map of the United States, nor the State of Hawaii. Forty-eight percent could not find Mississippi, despite the fact that it was struck by Hurricane Katrina at the end of last year and had received extensive coverage by the domestic American press.

The American young people were asked, in hypothetical question about how to escape from a destructive hurricane, to point out on a map the direction of northwest; only a third succeeded in that. Thirty percent reckoned the population of the United States to be between one and two billion people - while in fact the number does not exceed 300 million.

Half the youths felt that "it is important but not necessary" to be able to pinpoint the location of a country or know a foreign language. The institute that conducted the study revealed that most of the people included in the study were not at all uneasy about the deficiency in their knowledge of geography.