Brazil wants to free former Mexico from American rule. Never Forget!

You know how Americans are reputed to be terrible at geography? Well, we asked international students to label American states on a blank map to see how they measure up in American geography! Do Columbia’s international students know American geography better than American Columbia students? We went on a quest to find out and featured some of the results.

Archetypes of Geographers:

1. The Desperate Geographer
“Which one is New York?”
“Is this a body of water or is it Canada?”
“Wait, I thought Virginia was short for West Virginia”
“What the F is Wyoming”
“How did I get in Columbia?”

2. The Memory Technician
“Think of the civil war, think of the civil war”
“Who seceded?!”
““Nebraska and Kansas have to be together because of that act”
“I only remembered Ohio because of glee.”

3. The Nationalists
“We owned this at one point”
“Former Mexico, never forget!”
“Is New Mexico a state?!”

4. The Shape Amateurs
“How is this state so square?”
“Oh Yeah! This is the ‘Mid Man’: here is his hat, his belly, his shoe (Louisiana)!”
“FOUR CORNERS, FOUR CORNERS”
“Why are there SO many squares”

Memorable, yet somewhat offensive, state nicknames:

Utah: Mountains and Mormons
Connecticut: Cheap Liquor
Florida: Disney and Retired Jewish People
Pennsylvania: The Office
Montana: Miley’s Hometown.
Idaho: Potatoes
Wyoming: Ski Land, The Square State
Nevada: VEGAS
the Dakotas: Global Warming Winners
Oklahoma: North Texas
Minnesota: Basically Canada, Canada’s Foot
Tennessee: The only Ten-I-See,
Mississippi: Confederacy
Alaska: Where Sarah Palin Lives
California: Basically The Only State That Matters
NorthWest: Almost Canada
Mid West; Desert Hillbillies, “East Coast Bias”
The South: It’s all the same, “What even??”

Conclusions:
– Europeans kinda suck at American geography
– Americans are better at American geography….
– … but not good enough not to be embarrassed by these results.
– We don’t want to see how Americans do at European Geography