Member Article

UK vs US in geography brawl

North Americans fed up with being ribbed over their geographical incompetence are trying to get even, by pitting their skills against Britain in a transatlantic geography quiz. Geography enthusiasts from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean designed the 2006 Geography Cup after numerous surveys highlighted the geographical ignorance of both Americans and Britons. A survey in May this year, for example, found less than four in 10 young Americans could find Iraq on a map.

Anyone who wants to help the UK team can take part in the online quiz at www.geographycup.com. Contestants are given two minutes to place 13 randomly selected countries on an interactive political map.

British co-founder Daniel Raven-Ellison, a geography teacher from Reading, Berkshire, said there was a longstanding political rivalry between the United States and Britain. “There is definitely a sense in the UK that Americans are pretty poor in geography,” he said, confident that by the end of the contest the British team would come out top.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .