Yesterday I was again working with data about the U.S. states and it made me wonder - to what extent are you Americans familiar with the states? I mean, if I showed you a blank map, would you be able to find them all? Or at least more or less say where in the country they are?
Right now I would say I sort of have an idea, though I have to admit that especially the ones in the central US I probably wouldnt be able to tell. But before I started doing Meteotemplate I would probably only find Alaska, Texas, California, Florida and maybe New York, because those are relatively easy to find and well-known. It is funny, I also always thought Washington is on the East coast (guess why...
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I think it is like this for most Europeans, we would probably be able to tell if you said the name, that is is a state in the U.S., but only be able to find the easy to find ones.
I am also interested in how familiar you (not just Americans, but all non-Europeans) are with the European countries, is it the same as I described above? (i.e. you would find the easy to find ones)? I sort of assume locating my country would be a problem
And even today, I wouldnt be able to find most of the countries in Africa, only the easy ones (SA and the ones in the North)