Find Italy. Go east, then south.

I found a National Geographic study released last month which reveals some fun stats about people's lack of even basic world understanding. In their survey of 18-24 year olds (which would be the crowd to have most recently studied this stuff, you would think), they found the following:

• 33% could not identify Louisiana on a US map
• 88% could not find Afghanistan
• 63% could not find Iraq or Saudi Arabia on a map of the middle east
  
• 75% could not find Iran or Israel on a map of the middle east
  
• 44% couldn't find the Middle East at all
• 50% could not find New York on a US map
• 56% couldn't find Ohio
• 44% estimated China's population to be double that of the US
• 54% couldn't identify what continent Sudan was in (10% said Europe!)
  
• 75% could not find Indonesia
• 75% didn't know Indonesia was a Muslim country (PS - it's the largest Muslim country in the world, oh geographically challenged citizens)
• 48% think that China exports more, when measured by dollar value, than the US
• 34% could not identify which escape route, in a hypothetical scenario, directed them to the northwest when using a map and a compass rose! (page 18 of the report if you want to see how easy this one should be)
• 66% did not know you would travel south to get from Japan (in the northern hemisphere, P.S.) to Australia (in the southern hemisphere)
• 51% could not find Japan
  
• 30% thought the population of the US was over 1 billion people
• 74% thought English was the most common native language in the world
• 30% said the most heavily fortified border in the world was between the US and Mexico
• 50% thought India was a muslim contry
  

On the "positive" side,

• 70% could find China (of course, so can Kaitlyn, and she's FIVE)
• 59% know that the Amazon rainforest is in South America (well done class!)
• 51% could find India (again, nice work)
• only 6% thought India was the world's largest consumer of oil (but just who are you people?)

So, the next time Hawkins lets us know where he is, he'd better put up a map on his blog, as well as instructions on how to use it.