7 ms·

> You'll know the names of the states. How many other foreign countries do you know the subdivisions of I prefer to compare the USA with Europe as a whole, its

• boomboomsubban 8y ago
  What percentage of Americans could confidently name one state of India or one province of China? Our education system somewhat talks about Europe, but most of the world is basically ignored.
  • jacobmoe 8y ago
    Can students outside the US name Indian states or Chinese provinces? I assumed that was a general "west not thinking about the east enough" problem.
  • bunderbunder 8y ago
    Concrete example, for anyone who didn't get their primary education in the USA: In the school system I went to, "world history" really meant, "post-Renaissance European history." China and India never really entered the stage. But the East India Company did, which did make it necessary to at least acknowledge their existence in passing. edited to add: That said, I get the GP's point about excessive self-flagellation, and agree that it's OK to cut people some slack for not having a super-precise grasp of the local geography in places they'll probably never go. When I see major cities that lie within just a few kilometers of US borders described as, e.g., "Toronto, Canada" instead of "Toronto, Ontario", though, I still wonder.
  • nothrabannosir 8y ago
    India is not as important on the world stage and as relevant to as many other nations as the U.S.A. or China are. And China's provinces are not as independent and as relevant as America's states. China is much more centralized. The states aren't just provinces. It's not happenstance that they are constantly talked about. Hell, it's in the bloody name of the country.
    • cf498 8y ago
      What good does it actually do to know just the names from memory. Without any context they are rather useless. I dont think many people from the EU have to much to say about most US states except their names, if even that. I think most people from the EU could also name provinces or states where conflict with the central government exists on a larger scale or where people are at odds with the central government. I assume quite a few people will know of Kashmir for example. Just as you are unlikely to know the names of states for for example Germany, except maybe Bavaria, but for Spain you will likely have heard of Catalonia. And you will likely also know about what actually happens there instead just iterating through remembered terms for regions.
      • lordnacho 8y ago
        > What good does it actually do to know just the names from memory. Without any context they are rather useless. Point is if you don't know any names, you don't know any context either.
        • cf498 8y ago
          I would argue, that you inadvertently learn the names once you learn of the context. I would see it more as a filing system. If there is nothing it points to, whats the benefit of knowing it in the first place.
          • lordnacho 8y ago
            This is just a syllogism. Context -> names. !names -> !context. So we can tell that a guy who hasn't heard of eigenvectors (name) doesn't know much about linear algebra (context).
  • hopler 8y ago
    Punjab, Szechuan, Hunan, if they've opened a restaurant, we know it.
  • umanwizard 8y ago
    Sichuan, Tamil Nadu ? I think most somewhat educated people could.
  • adventured 8y ago
    What percentage of people outside the US will know the name or location of more than a few US states? I'd bet it's extraordinarily low. I'd bet less than 1% of the world's adult population can name more than six US states. My experience has been, educated people I know from Europe struggle to do a lot better than that. Point them out on a map? Forget about it beyond the obvious or famous ones like California, Florida, Alaska (near Russia), Hawaii (island), Texas (they know it's big and in the middle), maybe NY, and a select few others. US states have the population and economies of European nations. Americans are unfairly criticized for supposedly not being able to name or locate a lot of other countries. The rest of the world can't name or locate US states either. Why? Because it doesn't matter to their lives. A few of my friends from Romania didn't know where Crimea was, because it wasn't something that mattered to them previously until the conflict. Ask someone from Bulgaria or Belarus which state is Alabama, they generally won't know because it doesn't make much sense for them to learn that.
    • bkcreate 8y ago
      To be fair, as an American I don't even need to go to Europe to prove how little non-US geography I know. I can't even name or point to any Mexican or Canadian regions except for British Colombia
      • schoen 8y ago
        Maybe you've heard of Quebec?
        • bkcreate 8y ago
          Ive heard of Quebec and Sesq... however you spell it, but BC is the only one I could point to on a map
      • chx 8y ago
        Everyone heard of Beautiful British Columbia, that's where I live, after all :D
    • allendoerfer 8y ago
  • grogenaut 8y ago
    Anecdotally about 100% of foreigners I work with know roughly where NYC and LA are. 50% on top of that know where Chicago roughly is. My sampling is based on every foreigner I meet asking where I'm from. St. Louis. Which few know, so I use Chicago. Most think Chicago is dead center though and are happy when I teach them to use the bottom left of the lakes as a clue.
  • madengr 8y ago
    Americans live Chinese food, and from that: Sichuan Hunan Canton
• clatan 8y ago
  Do be hard on yourselves, because the rest of the world isn't so proudly uneducated.
  • jacobmoe 8y ago
    Is there any real difference between those who think the US is uniquely terrible in every way and those who think it is uniquely great in every way?
    • coldtea 8y ago
      Only accuracy.
  • Thriptic 8y ago
    Being able to regurgitate the locations of countries doesn't mean you are educated; it means you sat down with a map for a few hours and did some memorization... Saying the entire United States population is proudly uneducated is roughly equivalent to saying all of the UK hates Europe and wants to leave the EU, or that all of Germany is racist because of recent violence against migrants, or that Italy is full of lazy alcoholics who don't want to work. Just because a subset of the population holds certain views (and I don't think anyone is really proudly ignorant, just apathetic because they can be) doesn't mean the whole country or even most of the country thinks or acts that way. You attack our population for being uneducated and culturally ignorant and yet here you are regurgitating tired stereotypes...
    • zmw 8y ago
      I'm not sure about geography, but the vast majority of U.S. population is proudly uneducated in mathematics and many hard sciences. Math taught in high schools is pretty laughable and physics isn't even required in many places. Source: Lived in the U.S. for many years.
      • Thriptic 8y ago
        I agree that our primary schooling in general is suboptimal and inconsistent across regions. Where I disagree is that we are happy about that at a population level or somehow intentionally undermining education because we enjoy being ignorant (disregarding religious nonsense). In fact, if you look at where people decide to settle, school district quality is often a strongly weighted parameter.
• datenwolf 8y ago
  > Norway You do realize, that Norway is not a member of the EU. So in the context of Europe and the EU, it's more like Canada vs. USA.
  • Filligree 8y ago
    Norway is a part of the EEA. In practice, we are an EU member; just a non-voting one, with a few carveouts for fisheries and such.
    • elgenie 8y ago
      Norway's also part of the Schengen Area. There's no practical difference to an American in terms of travel and trade between Norway and, say, France or Germany, other than the fact that the money is krone and not euros.
• gmuslera 8y ago
  You know, there is another country that have United States in its name, the United States of Brazil. Do you know any of their individual states? You may know now some of the ex-URSS component countries because recent conflicts, but back then, would they had count as countries or states? Talking about EU is like talking about OTAN. Each of their component countries have their own president, their own political countries, and in a good part and their own policies, besides the group common policies. Countries are about political borders, not economical. Would you put California, Wall Street, Shenzhen and a few more at the same level as countries?
  • dlisboa 8y ago
    > You know, there is another country that have United States in its name, the United States of Brazil. Brazil is called "Federative Republic of Brazil". It's been that way for half a century.
  • Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
    AFAIK Brazil doesn't have "United States" in its name now (it did in the past). It's now called the Federal Republic of Brazil. Mexico does, it's called United Mexican Sates.
  • nothrabannosir 8y ago
    I do know the names of the states of Brazil, yes, but fair is fair: that's a coincidence. However, to your second and third point: yes, I do consider California more on the level of a European country. With its own laws, which very significantly impact the lives of her citizens. Hell, I'd wager almost everyone knew the name of its political leader at some point! Quite a famous guy :) originally European, even. Political borders exist very strongly between the states of the U.S.A., that's why they call it the "U.S.A.". I'm not just being glib; the level of delegation to states is so intense, capital punishment is a states rights issue. That is unheard of within any other country I can think of. At the end of the day, this is politics and linguistics: famously unspecific and imprecise. We will never find a perfect classification. It's about what is "least wrong." And to me, comparing a U.S. state to a European country makes much more sense culturally, economically, and politically, than it does to squeeze all of the U.S.A. into Denmark. (I don't know whence "Wall St.", but my point was never merely economy. Perhaps because of the "economic powerhouse" when referring to the U.S.A.? That was more an attempt at a jazzy moniker than a complete summary of what I think makes the country relevant, but I see the confusion. Apologies.)
• coldtea 8y ago
  >In that light, I wager many Americans would know quite a few. Norway, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Ireland surely would make the majority? Maybe even Belgium. Are we still allowed to say UK? As names (if that). Try having them pinpoint them on a map, or say anything intelligent about them.
  • blhack 8y ago
    This is so mean spirited, and honestly just wrong. Why do you think this?
    • Jommi 8y ago
      I've seen it happen multiple times
    • coldtea 8y ago
      I've actually tried it with people. And in US-own media, I've seen people unable to name the vice president, think Africa is a country, not know the 50 states, and all kinds of things.
      • AmericanChopper 8y ago
        This is really just your own confirmation bias. I’ve travelled quite a lot, and can assure you that everywhere you go, you’ll find people that lack knowledge that you think is common place.
      • masonic 8y ago
        Like Barack Obama's assertion that the USA has 58+ states? https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/57-states/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/57-states/
• c3534l 8y ago
  That's not a fair comparison. America's population is nowhere near that of Europe and our states don't have soveirgnty. Do you know the subdivisions of Russia or China? There is a lot of parochialism in thinking America is in any way comparable to the entire continent of Europe.
  • hannasanarion 8y ago
    US states do have sovereignty. The federal government can't force them to do anything or override their courts unless they violate federal constitutional rights. For a recent example, see FIDC v Sibelius, which concluded that the federal government doesn't have the authority to expand Medicaid. Unless it has something to do with commerce, taxes, investment and finance, scientific research, intellectual property, the military, international law, and the Capital, the Feds can't do it. They can ask states nicely to do it (like the Medicaid expansion), and they can give monetary incentives (like tying the drinking age to highway dollars), but they can't do it themselves.
    • gammateam 8y ago
      The real question is whether this semantical distinction is productive: how many people know about subdivisions of non-US countries and how they work The whole point of this is that people couldnt write the essay you just wrote about practically any other place on the planet, and the court cases that support it assuming it was ever challenged
      • hannasanarion 8y ago
        Sure you could. Germany, for example, is a federal republic following the American model. German states arguably have more power than American states, thanks to their representation in the upper house and the ability to independently conduct foreign trade.
• gammateam 8y ago
  A city in at least one of those countries issues their own visas and has their own seperate visa granting privileges Why is that? Your preference is cute, with Europes new and old supernational governments but it isnt comparable to the US and gives you no insight into the inner workings of those countries or subdivisions.
• scythe 8y ago
  People know about the political divisions of America which make the news. Likewise, Americans know about important provinces of other countries. For example, when I was in China, people asked me all sorts of questions about Texas. It turns out the Lone Stars have built quite an international reputation as a... libertarian paradise. Hawaii, California and New York play on the international stage, but nobody has heard of Idaho. Americans know the divisions of the UK. They might know Holland is a part of the Netherlands. Most of us know Bordeaux Normandy and Champagne are provinces of France, Bavaria is in southern Germany and Crimea is supposed to be in Ukraine. We know Venice, Sicily, Kashmir, Tibet, Manchuria, Xinjiang, Siberia, Baja California, the Yucatan and Patagonia. Also our states don’t get redistricted often (ever), unlike some countries.
  • pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    No-one has heard of Idaho, the potato state? >"Most US states are culturally and historically insignificant." // Someone said upthread. Thing is they're not culturally insignificant, I've no idea where Idaho is (NW?) but somewhere I've heard about its potatoes! That's because in the UK almost all the TV is from USA. Perhaps someone in a film, cartoon series, TV serial, song was from Idaho, maybe a country singer sang about it. That said, the impression as a European is primarily one of homogeneous culture, and primarily of European immigrants (though I'd say this is changing), particularly that Spanish speaking USA is making more impact in UK the last decade. Generalising the UK impression is that French, Spanish, Italian, etc., are distinctive (and in stereotype monocultural) in the same way USA-ian (which most just call "American") is. Yes, the differences of Silicon Valley/LA/Cali vs. the mountains of the Wild North, vs Washington, vs the Deep South, vs swampy Florida, etc. stand out. But the impression I, at least, get in movies is of no more variance across USA than within a Euro country. My wife and I did a test and could name all but one of the US states (with no prep) but not all the UK counties. There's a movie trope of kids learning the positions, shapes, State flowers, etc., of all the USA states ... I must have seen that at least 20 times in movies/TV. Never once have I seen anything approaching that for any other country (not even my own whilst I was at school).
    • umanwizard 8y ago