the ignorance in the US about basic geography is appalling-- when my daughter was in HS, she got a promotion at a temp job because it became evident to the manager that she knew the 50 states. She was working at a mailing house, and had to sort (outgoing) mail for postage. Sometimes, there would be domestic mail in the batches -- usually just missing a zip code. many of the workers had been "long term" temps, but still were unable to reliably recognize domestic from overseas addresses.
For myself, i "knew" New Zealand long before i knew Australia-- My family loved lamb-- and NZ frozen legs of lamb came with a "map" outlining the shape.. so I could find NZ on the globe as soon as i got to school. Idaho was one of the first states i knew as child too, from the bags of potatoes!
We had a puzzle map of the US, and i learned geography of US at a young age-- and still have childhood images of the states.. Virginia looks like a sleeping camel in my minds eye to this day!
