Since this story has gone viral, I wonder if the Governor of NM has chimed in. Maybe some rep or senator from NM can swing by the DC marriage license office and drop off a map!
Now we have 2 new congressional reps from NM. One woman is Native American, named Deb. The other’s first name is Xochitl. Uh oh, that would mightily confuse those marriage license clerks!
My sister thought it was a half-day drive from California to Ohio.
When I was in the Air Force, I had temporary orders to Alaska and had to get extra vaccinations because it was considered an overseas posting.
In my experience, the only states Europeans know about are Florida, Texas and California.
Yes “Texas. JR Ewing.” I’ve heard that more than once.
In a related note-I called my MasterCard company last week to alert them that I would be traveling to France. Somewhere in the conversation I said I was landing in Paris on 11/30. The person I was speaking with said “whoa, whoa,whoa…first you say France and now you say Paris, which is it?” She would not accept that Paris was a city so I asked her to forget I mentioned Paris and simply make the notation that I would be in France.
@Kajon Paris, Texas perhaps? 
We try to teach both US and World Geography, we really do, but what adults remember vs what they learned as kids depends quite a bit upon what they continue to use. Use it or lose it.
Kids from our high school do world country reports in our language classes. Groups also visit various places from French Canada or France, Spain or Costa Rica, and Italy (art students), plus around the science lunch table we mused about putting together a trip to the Galapagos for another year (because if the art students can go to Italy…). Overall though, not all students take those classes or care about more than the nearest beach when they vacation.
Even in the “old” days my mom (also a teacher) would tell everyone that kids can learn more by traveling than they can in school (assuming travel is not just to a resort where one never leaves).
I’ve had to combat the “need a passport to get to HI,” “Puerto Ricans aren’t Americans,” “AZ is a state in the US and not somewhere in Australia where kangaroos can be found,” “Mt Everest is in Alaska,” and similar mistakes from students, but at least they are students. They’re in school to learn.
From adults… one neighbor came out with a globe and said her elementary student needed to find 7 continents, but they could only find 6. Did I know where the other one was or was 7 a typo? (I told her to check the bottom…) When we were donating blood I wanted to know if our upcoming trip to Jordan would affect future blood giving and asked two workers at the center. The first one said, “Where’s Jordan,” and the second asked, “What country is that in?” I gave up and just checked on it later. When we were crossing the border back into the US at Niagara Falls the Customs Agent noticed “Cote D’Ivoire” on middle lad’s passport and asked, “Where’s that? Is it an island somewhere?” When told it’s a country in Africa he immediately asked, “Why would you go there?” in a very disdaining voice. This was a US Customs Agent. One would think he ought to know the various countries out there.
As with @Sue22, we’ve found most foreigners have far more knowledge of the US than most Americans have of other countries. Their knowledge of the US might not be complete or perfect, but it’s still far more than most Americans have of other places. This goes back to my elementary years. Having grown up literally on the Canadian border (from the road in front of my mom’s house one can look across the river and see Ontario), most of our school field trips went to Canada. We were touring a War of 1812 fort there and the guide asked our class to name Canada’s first Prime Minister. We were silent. He thought we were shy and asked again. Our teacher intervened telling him, “These are American children so don’t know that much about Canada.” The guide was dumbfounded (probably new - he was youngish). He said, "In Canada we all know that George Washington was the first US President. I’m really surprised that American kids living on the border don’t learn that John MacDonald was Canada’s first PM!) Then he continued on with his spiel about the fort - not dwelling on our lack of knowledge. I never forgot that moment though, and made it a point to be like the rest of the world caring a bit more about things outside our borders. I also use the story in school to encourage students there to care a bit more. My knowledge isn’t perfect, but it’s not empty either. It’s nice traveling and being able to engage fellow world tourists (from wherever) about world events. Perhaps related to that, most don’t correctly guess our nationality. We’re usually pegged as Canadian.
I think @Creekland is right about American schools trying to teach world culture and geography. Like language it’s a bit of a use it or lose it situation and many Americans don’t travel outside our very large country enough to retain much of what they’re taught in elementary school. Europe in particular is more interconnected than the US. Kids learn foreign languages earlier and more fluently than do our students and they travel abroad more. Students are able to take a train to another country for a vacation the way (speaking as an East Coaster) ours might hop in the car and drive to Florida for Spring Break.
One of the reasons my own kids know a lot of geography is the they have travelled a lot. When you’ve walked from Thailand into Myanmar or taken the train from France to Italy it’s hard not to remember that they border each other.
American media and culture also have a great influence on worldwide pop culture. Kids abroad watch a lot of American movies and TV and thus soak up a great deal of American culture by osmosis. The inverse can’t be said of American children and teens. This also affects how much knowledge we have about each other.
So Indian geography education is no better?
We had a world map posted on the wall facing the toilet when mine were young. There are all sorts of map puzzles which my kids used from an early age.
Those old pull down classroom maps are languishing somewhere or other. D (a geography grad student at the time) procured one as a white elephant gift from her university and said her department has many to choose from. I wish they were back in classrooms.
National Geographic has a nationwide Geobee. Sadly, it was not in our area, but any school can participate. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/bee
My son’s ex-gf moved from her Indian reservation to a large town HS to start 10th grade. The school put her in ESL classes.
With a daughter in Guinea, we find we have to differentiate it from New Guinea and Guinea-Bissau, a lot more forgivable than not knowing New Mexico.
My Alaskan daughter is often told that she can’t order something because the company only ships to American locations.
I’ve had people ask if I think she’ll ever move back to the US.
I don’t find any of this to be surprising. I have found that people in the U.S. tend to live in their regional bubbles and don’t know much about the country outside of their region. The fact that the bulk of the population lives on the coasts means “flyover territory” is most often misunderstood.
When I was growing up in Nebraska and did any travel outside of the plains states the first question I would get was “do you ride your horse/tractor to school?” Even to this day most people I meet that learn I live in Illinois ask if that is anywhere near Chicago, they have no concept that Chicago is a city and Illinois is the state it is located in. I know there are always confusion about the University of Iowa and where in Idaho it is located. People are stunned to find out that Omaha, NE has a population nearly 1 million and had (not sure if it still does) the most millionaires per capita of any city in the U.S.
Even traveling internationally, when I state I’m from Chicago, there are only two things people know about; Michael Jordan and Al Capone.
I think the same can be said for those from the Midwest. I don’t think most people I know have any idea what a borough is or that there are 5 in NY, much less what they are. Many in the Midwest think New England is a state because the Patriots must be from a specific locale not a region. Native Midwesterners also think California is one long beach, only broken up by San Diego, LA, and San Francisco; no idea there are large, rural, farming portions of the state.
Or ski resorts
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that so many on the coasts turn up their noses at ‘flyover country’. They have never been there and yet they judge it to be dull, full of dull people with nothing of any note to see.
I love driving cross country. It reinforces how untrue all that thinking is.
Thinking more about “World News,” ever compare BBC’s half hour TV show with any of the Big Five available widely in the US (NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, CNN)? The US versions very rarely cover anything outside the US - only once in a while if Americans are involved or it’s super big and most of the time it will only get a couple of minutes. BBC covers true world news each day, often in depth stories from oodles of places.
Yes, @Creekland! We recently switched to YouTube TV which has BBC America and BBC World News. The difference is quite astounding!
Ha, @TatinG – the center of the country does not hold a monopoly on being held in derision or stereotyped. I assure you that I, as a native New Jerseyan, can definitely compete in those categories.
“. I have found that people in the U.S. tend to live in their regional bubbles and don’t know much about the country outside of their region.”
That’s one reason I love this site–the regional differences. It’s fun to see how people react to different topics based on where they live or where they grew up. There is always good insight based on those differences.
I’ll forgive not knowing about regional differences–the USA is big and more diverse than most countries. We have big cities with compact populations, tiny towns, mountains, sea shores, hot, cold climates, forests, desert. Texas by itself is larger than the UK, Japan, Germany or France plus a host of others.
In my thinking (while I LOVE to travel to Europe) you might get more education about people just traveling the USA.
(and don’t assume you know the language already!)
https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/how-big-is-texas-compared-to-other-land-masses/
This is a fun article about geography because it compares ONE state albeit a big one to many world countries and how our views of geography can be very skewed depending on where we live and our own state/country boundaries.
Here is what someone got when asking people to draw maps of the US:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/adamellis/heres-what-happens-when-you-ask-people-to-draw-maps-of-the-u
Note the number of maps that show the Baja California peninsula as part of the US (it is actually two Mexican states, Baja California and Baja California Sur).
The funny thing is that I’ve lived in New England all my life and I’d never heard the term “flyover country” until I saw people using it on College Confidential.
Like all the people who think New Jersey is one big expressway populated by the cast of Jersey Shore and New York is all contained on the island of Manhattan? Yes folks, there are farms, meadows, orchards and forests in NY and NJ.