The United Nations recognizes 195 different countries in the world today, and it’s safe to say that most people couldn’t plot all of them on a map.
But to be unable to point out that location of a single one? Well, that’s alarming, to say the least.
But when the late night team at Jimmy Kimmel Live! recently asked people walking down the street in Hollywood to identify any one country on a map, they encountered several who were completely stumped.
Oh dear… Jimmy Kimmel had his team quiz people’s geography on the street
Not promising… They asked people to name a country, any country, and point it out on a map
Come on! The map they used had North America on the right and Europe on the left, but was still accurate
‘It’s imperative that America has strong relationships with and knowledge about people in other lands,’ Kimmel said in his introduction to the segment last week, referencing Donald Trump’s current overseas trip.
‘And that responsibility extends to all of us, not just the president. So we came up with a test. The test is very simple. We went out on the street and asked people who were passing by to name a country on a map. That’s it.
‘We had a map. We said name a country, any country. And here’s how that went.’
By the tone of his introduction, it’s clear immediately that it didn’t go all that well. While there were likely plenty of people who were up to the task, Kimmel’s team was able to find several who weren’t, and edited them together in a funny yet depressing clip.
‘Honestly, my geography’s so horrible,’ one woman says right away, when given a pointer. ‘I can’t name anything. Like nothing.’
So embarrassing! This woman could not point out a single country and giggled the whole time
Difference: This man pointed out Africa, which is a continent, not a country
Yikes! This man thought Alaska was Iceland or Greenland
She then puts the pointer on the continent of South America, and asks if it’s South Africa.
When asked to identify America, she points at Russia, and guesses that Australia is Europe.
Next up, a man points to Russia and asks if it’s Asia. Asia, of course, is a continent, not a country. The man also correctly identifies Africa — though, like Asia, that is also a continent and not a country.
Another woman also picks out Africa, thinking it’s a country. When asked to name a country in Africa, she asks, ‘Who knows stuff like that?’
Africa has 54 sovereign states, as well as 10 non-sovereign territories. Countries there include Algeria, Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, among others.
Um, a lot of people? When asked if she could name a single country in Africa, this woman asked, ‘Who knows stuff like that?’
Facepalm: The map clearly stumped several people stopped on the street
This woman thought she should have been taught these things in school (to her credit, many US schools don’t include much geography in the curriculum)
Boy genius: This boy had an impressive knowledge of geography and correctly identified many countries in North and South America
One man points to Alaska and guesses that it’s Greenland or Iceland, while another woman gets a confused look on her face and asks, ‘Shouldn’t I be taught this in school?’
Some of the confusion likely came from the map that the show used, which is not the traditional one that most people in the US are used to seeing. Most maps place North and South American on the left, and Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia on the right, which this one was a shifted — but no less accurate — view.
The shapes of the countries and their proximity to one another remained the same.
Luckily, the clip showed that not all hope was lost. The last person to appear in the video was a boy who appeared to be about middle school-aged.
He correctly pointed out several countries in a row, starting with South America — Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Peru — before moving up to North America and Greenland.
He then made his way to Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea before the clip ended.