in which I earn my geography geek badge

[martasfic]

Someone apparently asked Brits to label a map of US states. It’s pretty funny. To be fair, there are an awful lot of them, and many look entirely too alike.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/robinedds/its-thanksgiving-so-we-asked-some-brits-to-label-the-us-stat

Curious at how well I would do, I hunted down a quiz on US states and took it myself. There were several, but on the one I attempted I got 98%. The one state I missed was Michigan, which I confused with Minnesota. I actually knew the state they were asking for as “the one with Detroit in it” and where I took Greyhound and visited a friend one New Year’s while I lived in Cleveland. I just have this thing where I swap similar sounding names or shapes that are close to each other. So in this case I knew what the state was and where it was on the map, but got the names switched in my head.

I can’t complain, though, because I lucked out and got New Hampshire/Vermont and Iowa/Wisconsin and Mississippi/Alabama correct. Which really, I shouldn’t have. Law of averages and all that. Still, I think I’m better at this than a lot of people, not because I’m a map geek (there’s that, too). Rather, I grew up with a Tandy Commodore computer, and one of the games was to match state names to a map. Incidentally, that’s the same reason I can type as quick as I can. Someone had to protect the skyline from those aliens, you know.

I’m not nearly so good on the Europe map - 67% at the point I gave up. I’d be curious how many of my European friends can pick their Slovenia from their Belarus, to say nothing of their San Marino from their Liechtenstein. You guys have a hard map. Although I suspect Wyoming and Colorado would be just as puzzling to many non-Americans.

How would you do on these quizzes? Any surprises?

And do check out the Buzzfeed post. The ones toward the bottom are pretty hilarious.

Originally published at Faith Seeking Understanding. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[shirebound]

You did great with the States! I took the 'strict test' and got 45 out of 50 (points off for Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin.) It's obvious what part of the country I need to brush up on.

[marta-bee.livejournal.com]

Most people do! They're all so durned same-shaped out west...

[engarian.livejournal.com]

I mess up on the East Coast. Too many tiny states. I'm great from Michigan on west. I know Maine and Vermont, I can usually find Massachusetts and New York without any problem, but Connecticut defeated me utterly.

Europe killed me. I was OK on the standards, the UK, France, Germany, Spain, even Switzerland, Monaco and Luxembourg. But Cyprus? Bosnia and Hergoza.... oh heck, I can't even spell it properly. I'm so sorry!

A few of the "fill in the US states" maps were very well done. Others were just totally fun to read through.

I guess I'm very geographically challenged (or I think that we should all be a single, unified people. Oh well...pipe dreams...

- Erulisse (one L)

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Slovenia and Belarus are actually relly easy to tell apart, as are San Marino and Liechtenstein. ;) But I did mess up the Baltic States, as well as Georgia and Armenia, Serbia and Bosnia, and Montenegro and Kosovo. Clesrly, I'm no good at Eastern European geography. :(

But I only scored between 70% and 80% on the US map quiz, so there's that.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I suspect I'd do better with US states than with European countries. Nobody's mucked around with the map of the US since I was at school.

[rhapsody11.livejournal.com]

The hardest one for me are the former Yugoslavian states: Montenegro and Macedonia: I always confuse those two. But the small city states ain't that hard. Liechenstein is always between Austria and Switserland, San Marino is in Italy and it can't be the Vatican city so with some deduction you can get quite far :)

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

USA
Quiz over. You scored 62 out of 150.
Your score is 41%.

Europe 77/102