I guarantee that a random Italian living in a tiny nowhere village knows more about the US than your average US citizen knows about Italy. I don’t know a single person who doesn’t know the difference between Washington state and Washington the city.
I have however spoken to Americans who couldn’t point to the United States on an atlas.
When I moved away from Alaska, the first person I spoke to in Georgia was a fast food cashier who asked about my day, and they asked “How are you liking the states?” No variation of “Alaska is a state.” would get through to him, he just kept saying “Sure, but I mean like a United States state.”
He did not, I asked specifically. I even said “Alaska is the 49th of the 50 states.” and he chuckled and said I was confused. Thankfully that wasn’t the standard, but I did meet a few more similarly confounded people over the years.
Also the number of people that think Alaska is small because of how it’s shown on many maps is staggering.
There’s a tweet going around a little while ago about an American who didn’t know that Rome was in Italy. Apparently there’s a Rome in the US and she only knew about that one.
Do American schools teach their kids literally anything at all? How can you not know where Rome is.
Lol, I think I remember a trivia question where texas had more foreign states in it than the ussr. Americans get off on naming cities/areas after foreign nations.
I mean, you wouldn’t be too far off. There’s an Air Force base about 20-30 minutes from my house. I imagine it would be a military target if a war was ever waged stateside.
There’s an AFB or navy base by a lot of bigger cities. The army takes their crazy off into a corner of a state though, so they can play in the field alone.
There are several high-value sites in the state, and I-5 is an obvious target just generally. JBLM, Whidbey Island Station, Everett Naval, and major power infrastructure like Hanford or Grand Coulee.
<Seattle goes up in smoke because foreigners don’t understand the difference between Washington state and Washington DC>
<Trump starts selling gold-plated Space Needle statues with his head on top>
I guarantee that a random Italian living in a tiny nowhere village knows more about the US than your average US citizen knows about Italy. I don’t know a single person who doesn’t know the difference between Washington state and Washington the city.
I have however spoken to Americans who couldn’t point to the United States on an atlas.
To be fair if we’re talking geographically, it’d be more fair to compare knowledge of the US to knowledge of the whole of Europe.
If we’re talking about history it’s a bit different.
Foreigners know the difference. It’s Americans who are dumb. I can’t tell you how many Americans think New Mexico is not a state.
When I moved away from Alaska, the first person I spoke to in Georgia was a fast food cashier who asked about my day, and they asked “How are you liking the states?” No variation of “Alaska is a state.” would get through to him, he just kept saying “Sure, but I mean like a United States state.”
He presumably meant contiguous, but definitely didn’t know the word
He did not, I asked specifically. I even said “Alaska is the 49th of the 50 states.” and he chuckled and said I was confused. Thankfully that wasn’t the standard, but I did meet a few more similarly confounded people over the years.
Also the number of people that think Alaska is small because of how it’s shown on many maps is staggering.
There’s a tweet going around a little while ago about an American who didn’t know that Rome was in Italy. Apparently there’s a Rome in the US and she only knew about that one.
Do American schools teach their kids literally anything at all? How can you not know where Rome is.
Lol, I think I remember a trivia question where texas had more foreign states in it than the ussr. Americans get off on naming cities/areas after foreign nations.
Pff, yeah right, and New Amsterdam isn’t in Europe.
I wish this wasn’t true. My teen thought this for a few minutes and I had to correct her. I thought she was gaslighting me at first.
I mean, you wouldn’t be too far off. There’s an Air Force base about 20-30 minutes from my house. I imagine it would be a military target if a war was ever waged stateside.
There’s an AFB or navy base by a lot of bigger cities. The army takes their crazy off into a corner of a state though, so they can play in the field alone.
There are several high-value sites in the state, and I-5 is an obvious target just generally. JBLM, Whidbey Island Station, Everett Naval, and major power infrastructure like Hanford or Grand Coulee.
Also Bangor (now Kitsap) for the nuclear sub fleet and such.