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Croatia? Geography in USA?

  • Chatting with people on MSN, few versions of poker and in other ocasions, I was so suprise that many of them doesn't know where my country is. I'm not antediluvian, ridged or anything like that, I just don't understand how can so many people be so wrong. One, who was the closest to the right answer, said that Croatia is just by Germany. I was really shocked! Maybe is just because here, in my country, we have to know every, but absolutely every country that exists and not just that, in geography, in high as well as in primary schools, we have to know many (too many, if I can put it that way) details about them. I get this feeling that in USA people surely know for Canada, Australia and maybe some famous european country, but maybe and that would be from sports, that's all. I am now asking you how it is possible? Country which is the most powerful on this planet have citizens who can't even recount their own states? And knowing for some smaller countries on other continents- no way??

  • Answer:

    Oh well... Don`t be shocked. Get used to it. I went to America and while I was there I asked loads of people if they now where Croatia was. The funny think is, more-less every fourth person said it was just next to Kazahstan! Don`t ask me where they got that information! I found it... Well, shocking, at first, but then I started thinking. Really, do you know where... say... (meaning: wait for me to Google "list of countries") Burundi is? I had never even heard of it until I Googled "list of countries" and randomly picked out a country. It is a small, undeveloped country of just over 8 million inhabitants, that`s what i could tell by quickly scanning the text. I am not saying that we are as undeveloped as they are, I am just saying that each and every Croatian can live their entire lives in blissful ignorance about Burundi, because IT IS NOT A PART OF WHAT THEY MUST KNOW. Just like most Americans, Mexicans, people from Burundi, will never EVER have to know of Croatia. Do you understand what I`m saying? USA, Russia, UK, Germany, China, Japan. Most people know about those countries. They are in the media every single day. I`ve probably heard of Burundi at some point in my life, considered it irrelevant and had simply forgotten all about it. So that would, in short, be why I think lots of Americans, and many, many, MANY more nations all around the world have no idea about Croatia.

malena_1... at Yahoo! Answers Visit the source

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Croatia is a small country in the Balkans, the capital is Zagreb. The closest I've been to that area is Greece, and I'd like to see the rest of the Balkans eventually. To answer your question, most Americans are not particularly inclined in geography. It comes from very dumbing TV programming, rampant xenophobia, and a laughable public school system.

Jens

Croatia wasn't an independent country when I went to school and studied Geography. I know Croatia is in Europe, was part of Yugoslavia, and is near Italy and Greece. I've never been to Europe, so knowing exactly where Croatia is and what it borders has never been a priority. I have enough trouble just keeping up with the name changes of all of the small countries in Europe, and who is a country now, and who isn't, and which countries have split, and which haven't. Do you know where Maryland is without looking? What borders it?

I don't think so

Well it depends on the person your asking most of americans are too lazy to learn this stuff BUT others like me do take the time to learn this stuff so people from other countries won't get mad at us and think we are all meat heads!

Volim1

I agree with you that America (that's all i can speak for) is greatly lacking in the geogrphy department. I am proud to say that I know where Croatia is (next to Bosnia and Herzogovenia), but that's just because I'm a huge geogrphy nerd and love maps. When I mention a country other than Mexico, Canada, Australia, China or the USA, I am shocked to see that most of my peers (I am 15) have no clue where this country is. And yes, it is true that there are LOADS of people in America who can not even say all 50 states, let alone their capitals. You can pretty much forget about them knowing foreign countries alltogether. Also, I might be going to Croatia and some other neighboring countries in Eastern Europe within the next few years! The other options are Vietnam and New Zealand.

Tomboy with girly tendencies

Hi Malena, Some Americans do know geography, but unfortunately many do not. The YouTube link shows you some pretty poor understanding of geography. It's funny, but only until you think about what this means in the bigger picture. Aside from the problems with the school system, the lack of knowledge reflects an isolationist sentiment that goes right back to the founding of the country - even early on, Americans wanted to stay out of Europe's problems, and we wouldn't even enter WWII until we were attacked. Since we didn't want to be involved, we also couldn't be bothered to learn about it. Even today, only about 20% of Americans have passports, so you can imagine that very few of them have spent much time in other countries. BTW: I know Croatia was once part of Yugoslavia, and that it gave us Toni Kukoc. Their football uniform is red and white, no? ----- Edit: And on 05.09.07, Croatia upset world champion Spain to win Group B and advance to the second round in the Eurobasket tournament. Congratulations!

Bad Brain Punk

hahaha yes you could have expected that..many americans know nothing about geography, especially not about map locating:)

Antonio r

he he...don't be so surprised...but it's not just the Americans, many people that live outside of Europe don't know where Croatia is...it's something that's not expected from them to know in school....but in our high school, our geography professor couldn't bare us not knowing the capitals of all the 50 states of the USA+the capitals of all the countries in the world...and show it on a map...it was necessary to learn it all in case you wanted a higher grade...even though we didn't like that kind of work, now we're happy to remember even a fragment of what we've learned from her...

iva_k

Oh jeez, not this again. Yea yea, it's because Americans are retarded and Croatians are brilliant, Americans are just mean and meatheaded, that's the only reason they stay in power yada yada yada.

U.

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