Do you know your basic geography?

[Babablackship]

If presented with a map of Europe could you name the countries?

Just being curious as at a recent gathering many university and phd educated people couldn’t.

Yes, I can. At primary school we had to learn all the countries, their capitals and major seas and rivers. I am 49

Yes, I can and my DS (8) can do most

Yes of course I can! I even know how to say Hello in most of european languages as well :) However, I am European myself so that could be the reason why.

I’d struggle a bit with Eastern Europe.

@NamelessCreature was this in Britain? Only asking because I saw nothing of the sort been taught to my children.

Bit vague around the Balkans.

Yes, I grew up in Britain. It was not just Europe that we to learn but the world, thought everyone was taught this.

Yes. Although I have a colleague who struggles with anything outside the M62 corridor between Leeds and Hull.

Most of them, but like Edith I'd probably get a bit vague around the Balkans, but I'd hope I could get 70/80% of European countries right.

Yes and I'm pretty good at doing Countries of the World and American States too.

I found it quite alarming that during the Iraq War a news reporter commented that the majority of Americans couldn't locate Iraq on a map of the World.

Yes, all of europe and could probably do most of the capitals too.

But I love Europe and have travelled a lot, particularly around eastern Europe and the Balkans. I also live in mainland Europe, which helps!

I have come to accept that many (UK based) friends & family don't have much knowledge of European countries, simply because they're not interested.

Anything east of Italy and I'm snookered, I could probably get the Scandinavian countries mixed up pretty easily too.

We were taught the countries at primary school but I'm just crap at remembering anything visual.

We have a world map on the wall in the family room and use it to teach the children (and ourselves) continents, countries, capital cities, time zones, etc.

We also do that wanky middle class thing of putting a pin into every area we have visited.

Yes that is my question, how do people learn them? Neither of my DC have been taught any of this in school. The eldest will drop geography in y10 so the only chance for people to learn then is off their on back or being taught at home.
I am not sure how I have learnt them to be fair - staring at the map on the wall during boring lessons? Through History (although that is another one that is not taught much in depth and then dropped).

I am a bit baffled. That’s all.

You mean like THIS: www.sporcle.com/games/Chenchilla/europe-find

I got 89%, which I think is decent

Yes
As a child we had a globe and atlas and poured over them.
I grew up isolated and without electricity/tv/running water. Books were everything, and atlases were the best. You could look up dirty or rude place names, play 'which country would you travel to' , find all the places you'd heard of in songs or books.

Now as an adult, I play geography games on my phone, haha!

I know it and so do my DC who are early 20s, but they were taught it by me and DH not school. Same with historical facts and other random general knowledge stuff. Very few 20 somethings seem to know much about geography.
It means that we are an unbeatable quiz team as a family.

I just spend a lot of time looking at maps. I find them fascinating and very much regret that I did history at school, not geography, but I think that's because the geography teacher was a bit of a dick.

@ALittleBitAlexis yes I wonder if having a visual memory is a bit the key here. An innate curiosity? A multidisciplinary approach when teaching things? Yes to the map on the wall and pin (wanted to do it too but though about the wankiness level . Mind you have recently considered a world history time line for out stairs wall as that is something else that is bugging me - how little of History is taught, British, European and World).

Yes, I am pretty good with geography. I am pretty sure I could name most the countries in theworld

I genuinely can't remember if we were taught it at school. But we had a globe and an atlas as kids - and only 3 TV channels! We also played board games (anyone else played "Journey through Europe" ?)

I have a map of Europe on the wall now and my 3 year old loves to play with it. She can point out the country we live in, plus a few where we've been on holiday. Although I'm not sure if this is from the flag or the location!

We are also a very flag-orientated family

maybe we are just geeks

I could probably do about half but definitely not something I learned at school

I’m a Sporcle addict, so I can name the countries of the world, even if placing the islands of Oceania and the Caribbean is a bit hit or miss. For Europe I can do capitals as well, same for the states of the US. I find naming the countries of a continent in alphabetical order is a good way to get to sleep, a side effect is a much better appreciation of international news, now that I have more feel for where everything is.

Oh, I love Sporcle. 70% but it was the Balkans I need to work on.

We also have a globe and several atlases in the house. Oh and flag books. We can identify most flags. We sound a bit sad don't we?

I just view this as general knowledge helped by the fact I love to travel to other countries. DH has worked all over the world and a map is a good way to visualise to the children where he is.