#Geography knowledge

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

I got 31 out of 50... as a U.S. American.

But I'd argue that quiz is just as much a test of how quickly you can type without typos as it is how many states you can name (and considering I had to go back and fix 4 [make that 5 -- no, 6] typos just writing this sentence...)

inspired by the quiz i saw for the countries!

take this quiz to see how many USA states you can name in 10 minutes, because i was curious to see if i still remembered. i got all but blanked on wyoming, maryland, and oklahoma. (and i only got nebraska, missouri, and mississippi in the last 10 seconds. when i blank out i BLANK out.)

[prinsliworld]

What are Plateaus : पठार क्या हैं और ये कैसे बनते हैं? विश्व और भारत के प्रमुख पठार

पठार क्या हैं (What are Plateaus) पठार (Plateaus) धरातल के ऊंचे उठे वे भाग हैं, जो उल्टे तवे के समान होते हैं. पठार धरातल पर द्वितीय श्रेणी के उच्चावच (धरातल की ऊँचाई-निचाई से बनने वाले प्रतिरूप या आकार) हैं. प्रायः इन्हें मेज के आकार की भू-आकृति भी कहा जाता है. सम्पूर्ण धरातल के 33 प्रतिशत भाग पर इनका विस्तार पाया जाता है. पठार ऊंचाई में पर्वतों से कम और मैदानों से अधिक होते हैं. इनका विस्तार…

[st-just]

People shit-talk the public education system for numerous reasons of often extreme validity, but imo more people could do with getting handed a blank map of some region and an atlas and being told to label everything and note all the capitals every month of middle school.

[superstrijder00]

For @seraphimnoted's information, this is why you want to know some basic facts about these places:

It is often relevant to know at least kind of how wealthy a place is because this affects what resources they have to devote to a crisis, vs. how much help they will need from other countries, especially in the case of natural disasters.

It is often relevant to know vaguely what size and population a country has, these often correlate but a shorthand of "roughly the size of this state/country I know well, and a high/mid/low population density" is usually enough. Again gives you info on what size a situation we're dealing with.

In case of more small stories focused on diplomacy and leadership, it can be relevant to know vaguely what kind of things it could be into politically. It can be relevant to know a country is in the Middle East, for example, because that implies things about political tensions, or implies there are lots of Muslims. It would also be useful to know where it is on the scale of "full democracy" to "full dictatorship"

If someone says "I'm from [country]" you can at least think of the right continent

Now lets see if I can answer those questions for Ohio, Nebraska and Montana:

Ohio is a medium sized state in the US. IIRC it is in the midwest, which means it is of medium density and thus probably similar to say austria in terms of size and population. Though I've heard it has lots of corn so probably less population. Things influencing all of Ohio are big, but not huge. If it is currently corn growing season that may be an issue for the wider region? Ohio is part of the USA, the richest country on the planet, and so will not be asking money from anywhere on my continent for any natural disaster. They are likely to get into issues over the leadership of the USA, and their region is a mostly free democracy, though many states nearby are sliding backwards at the moment.

Nebraska is IIRC larger but further southwest and less populated. Issues facing all of Nebraska are pretty big probably? Nebraska is part of the USA, the richest country on the planet, and so will not be asking money from anywhere on my continent for any natural disaster. They are likely to get into issues over the leadership of the USA, and their region is a mostly free democracy, though many states nearby are sliding backwards at the moment.

Montana is a state whose size I don't know, but it is absolutely empty of people. I'm going to guess size of France, population of less than Luxembourg. Issues facing everyone in Montana are big in area, but small in impact on the amount of people. Montana is part of the USA, the richest country on the planet, and so will not be asking money from anywhere on my continent for any natural disaster. They are likely to get into issues over the leadership of the USA, and their region is a mostly free democracy, though many states nearby are sliding backwards at the moment.

How did I do?

Ohio is a midwestern state with 11 million people to Austria's 9 million, and 116k km2 vs 84k km2. "Ohio Corn" results in a bunch of search results about what things Ohio Corn is used for, though it influences population less than I estimated.

Nebraska is indeed larger and emptier. It is less of a desert that I thought but apart from that I was on the money.

Montana has 1 million people, Luxembourg has 600k, so I quite underestimated it there, but with 3 times the size of Ohio my estimate of "it's large and empty" is probably accurate.

The fact the USA dominates online discourse and a lot of my local media means I know a lot about the general region all these states are in. I also happen to know all states that aren't Alaska or Hawai'i are on the same area in North America so I have "which continent do you come from" down too! Yay!

i think that, if youre usamerican and any time someone calls out your lack of knowledge on global geography you start talking about how bad the usa education is and how its actually not your fault that you dont know what continent nigeria is on because you cant look at the google maps bc donald trump will personally shoot you, youre very annoying

[lelouch]

its so crazy ppl from other countries On Line have to learn english and american terminology and geography and politics but some americans will get sooo pissed off when you tell them it would be better if they learned from other countries too? insane

[countingstars-17]

Max placed correctly all the landmarks in 30 seconds (out of 90 available). My geography king!

[reality-detective]

Iceland was named Iceland so people would travel to Greenland which is actually ice land. But what do I know? 🤔

[bioluminescencia]

Pantheon and the moon

Rome, Italy

January, 2023

@bioluminescencia

[tetraterantula]

im trying to prove a point (given an unlabeled map with no borders drawn, would the average person be able to point at Mexico)

[tuttle-did-it]

Is Crabapple Cove, Maine next to Cabot Cove, Maine?

[papermonkeyism]

Further thinking of the potentially making a travel journal/zine about Entica.

Wonder if I could maybe commission a fantasy mapmaker to make a map or two of Entica for me. 🤔

Doesn't have to be the entire planet, as only two continents and some islands are known, but I'm thinking one map of said known world, with the Ezek continent visible, and a more specific map of the particular journey of the potential zine thingy to take place in.

I have no idea what kind of price ranges those kinds of commissions even generally go for or if I could even afford one, but I think it would be fun to have one!

Anyone know any fantasy map artists with a knowledge of how geography works?

[syunkiss]

I still don't know if Connecticut is actually real or if it was invented here on tumblr

[madbalalaika]

God it's hard to write a DnD story when you know absolutely nothing about DnD 💀

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

What’s your opinion on Pompeii then

tbh, i dont feel necessarily qualified to discuss the ethics around pompeii.

as i stated in the post, ocean liners and shipwrecks are one of my special interests so i know quite a lot about that kind of thing. ive watched a lot of interviews with survivors of wrecks or family members of those who died. this includes victims of titanic where family members have said they doont watch folks going down there to gawk at the wreck. there are also several shipwrecks that cannot be treated as tourist hotspots either because of respect for the dead or to avoid things like plundering or vandalism, like the fitz or the greek trading ship in the black sea.

because of all that, i feel that i know enough about the topic to speak on it and i will defer to what the survivors and the families of victims say.

im not that well-versed on pompeii beyond what most people know. ive never come across any discussion about it as a tourist spot or as part of "dark tourism', so my opinion is that my opinion on that matter is worthless.

if anyone who does know more about it, id love to hear what you think about it as a tourist spot.

[errruvande]

My USAmericans friends I have a very genuine question here... After so many YouTube short and some personal experience with people from the USA I have a question... That might sound a bit harsh but I just don't know how to phrase it better lol no offense

Do your schools teach you something about the rest of the world? I mean, world history or geography?

Cause a few American people I know told me their schools only teach American history (even like when they're studying WW2).

And like, for someone who had two mandatory history classes in school: Russian history and world history, - and a mandatory geography class at which we were learning a great deal about world geography too, it's kinda pretty baffling to me lol

And that geography is not a mandatory class????

[cornbread818]

I did so much studying of the Russian oblasts and Japanese prefectures just for BBAU 😭 also a little bit of Philippine regions and UK countries.

I literally did not care about geography before, I knew it was important but I wasn’t interested. But ever since I joined BBAU, I’ve become somewhat invested. I’m really happy I’m finally incetivised to learn about these topics. @floororangejuice can vouch for how crazy I went.