Of all the data maps I've ever seen, this is the one I don't believe in the most. US Americans are so embarrassingly shit at geography. There is no way on god's green earth Americans are familiar with this many countries. I bet most Americans couldn't name more than like 30 US states. Do you really think 80-90% of Americans have heard of Zambia? Or Papua New Guinea?! No way, I don't buy this for a second. Gotta be some really low quality underlying data. Americans are liars.
Of all the data maps I've ever seen, this is the one I don't believe in the most. US Americans are so embarrassingly shit at geography. There is no way on god's green earth Americans are familiar with this many countries. I bet most Americans couldn't name more than like 30 US states. Do you really think 80-90% of Americans have heard of Zambia? Or Papua New Guinea?! No way, I don't buy this for a second. Gotta be some really low quality underlying data. Americans are liars.
theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/18/republican-voters-bomb-agrabah-disney-aladdin-donald-trump
Yeah, just as many Americans have heard of Brunei as Vietnam?
How did I miss it? When did we go to war with Brunei? It's how Americans learn geography.
Prankster pollster sneaks in some maps for a bonus round.
The pollster shows Yugoslavia and asks "Is this Belgravia?"
American: "Yeah. I think so. Belgravia? Yeah."
Italy's boot appears. "Is this Greece?"
American: "Yeah."
Pollster: "Let's go to the Middle East. He shows Egypt. "Is this Libya?"
American: "Yeah. I'm better at this than I thought!"
Pollster: "You're doin' awesome. Next up is..."
Yeah there are a lot of countries in Europe around 10M people that I've had Americans tell me they'd never heard about.
I think it's a sampling bias, of people who respond to YouGov polls. Maybe some lying on the responses too.