History Main / GlobalIgnorance

* Sometimes, the Brits can be no better than the Americans they mock. In 2017, after the Brexit referendum, Creator/Channel4 [[https://www.thejournal.ie/brexit-ireland-border-2-3721935-Nov2017/ did a street poll]] asking people to draw the border of UsefulNotes/NorthernIreland. Many of them simply cut off the top quarter of the island, one woman split the country on half ''south of UsefulNotes/{{Dublin}}'', another accused the Irish of "making troublej just because they lost", apparently unaware that Ireland did not vote in the Brexit referendum [[CaptainObvious on account of being an entirely different country]].

* [[LetsPlay/TheKingOfHate Darksyde Phil]] did ''very'' poorly on the geography minigames in ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}'' (among other things, he tried to put the Spanish flag on ''the United Kingdom''). He eventually had to get help online.

* In ''Literature/WhyWeTookTheCar'', Maik at first refuses to believe that Wallachia ''exists''.

Can overlap with EskimosArentReal, if the character refuses to believe that a country actually exists.

* In a ''Franchise/{{Shrek}}'' film, Donkey is served a platter of food by a chef who says "''Bon appétit''" (which is a French expression) and Donkey remarks: "Oh, boy! Mexican food!" (Of course, [[DancingBear the fact that a four-legged animal can speak in the first place is pretty impressive on its own]].)

* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'': Playboy X says that Dubai is in Africa (instead of the Middle-East) when discussing his business with an Arab businessman. Niko immediately tells him that this is so wrong and shows [[SmugSnake Playboy]] is not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.

* [[{{Eagleland}} Americaball]] in Webcomic/{{Polandball}}.

* During the Hulk Hogan vs. Kim Jong-Il ''WebVideo/EpicRapBattlesOfHistory'', Hogan threatens to kick Kim's ass "back to Beijing". Kim's first line in his rebuttal verse: "Beijing is in ''China'', you blonde asshole!"

* [[LetsPlay/TheKingOfHate Darksyde Phil]] did ''very'' poorly on the geography minigames in ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}''. He eventually had to get help online.

** In "Mother Simpson", Mr. Burns is seen in the post office trying to send a letter to "the Prussian consulate in Siam", exasperated as the clerk cannot find any mention of Prussia or Siam in his geographical index. This isn't a joke about ignorance so much as part of the RunningGag about how outdated Burns is -- Siam became Thailand in 1939[[note]]though it changed ''back'' to Siam in 1945, but only for four years, and had always been known as "Muang Thai" domestically[[/note]], and Prussia broke up into several different countries between the World Wars[[note]]It was nominally dissolved in 1932, but officially dissolved in 1947 and was effectively just part of Germany for decades before that[[/note]], and had not been a sovereign state since joining the German Empire in 1871. The clerk, on the other hand, ''is'' just plain ignorant, since he thinks his inability to locate Prussia, Siam or "[[AntiquatedLinguistics autogyro]]" means his own manual must be out of date.

** Josh proves to not be much better than Drake when the latter asks why they call it "New Jersey" and he has no idea. Someone of his intelligence should know there actually is a regular "Jersey", as in the Isle of UsefulNotes/Jersey off the coast of Great Britain that's the source of the U.S. state's name.

Trade, travel, war, and other interactions between nations and regions is an integral part of human history, from the Silk Road to the Triangle Trade to containerization. In fact, in today's globalized world there is only a small handful of countries that are self-sufficient, ie can support their own population with everything they need without needing to trade for it, so geography has always been something that people would (or should) be aware of, simply by virtue of the fact it's A) very difficult not to, and B) just seems a bit rude not getting to know your neighbors. Thus, when TV wants to show that a person is an idiot, they almost inevitably show them making a geographic mistake, such as mistaking a continent for a country, or the inability to find a given location on a map.

In a variation, a character insists on using [[IstanbulNotConstantinople the old names]] for countries that have reformed or gained independence, such as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodesia Rhodesia]] (a former British territory in Southern Africa now known as Zimbabwe), Formosa (Taiwan), or Ceylon (Sri Lanka). In this case, the character is [[FishOutOfTemporalWater oblivious to the]] [[BornInTheWrongCentury changing political climes]], and has no interest in staying current. If he knows the modern names, [[SelectiveObliviousness but refuses to acknowledge them]], he's probably a QuintessentialBritishGentleman who wants to harken back to the glory days of the empire.

** ''Series/{{CNNNN}}'' has a journalist checking out general knowledge about Americans. During that skit, one section has random people point out Iraq and North Korea on the map. While they do find those countries, the map is mislabeled, and thus they put the pin in the middle of Australia. One person also commentes that North Korea has a large land mass compared to South Korea (mislabeled from Tasmania). And finally, if the USA needed to attack the country in the bottom-right corner of the map, they would have to attack from the West (cause the East just has the edge of the map).

** Josh proves to not be much better than Drake when the latter asks why they call it "New Jersey" and he has no idea. Someone of his intelligence should know there actually is a regular "Jersey", as in the Isle of Jersey off the coast of Great Britain that's the source of the U.S. state's name.

** A few other holdouts exist - Peking duck, the University of Peking, and Beijing International Airport's IATA code is still '''PEK'''.[[note]]The IATA in general hates changing airport codes once assigned -- Ho Chi Minh City's is still '''SGN''' for the old name Saigon.[[/note]]

* [[https://youtu.be/3q_iqrvnC_4 As reported]] by ''[[Website/TheOnion Onion News Network]]'', the U.S. State department once mistakenly sent billions of dollars in foreign aid money to the wealthy European microstate of UsefulNotes/{{Andorra}} out of belief that it was really a poor, war-torn African country[[note]]likely confusing it with An''gol''a[[/note]]. And that's not even getting into the State Department's official "[[{{Bulungi}} Map of Africa]]".

* Subverted in ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}'' with the strip titled "[[{{Eagleland}} The World According to a Group of Americans]]... [[http://xkcd.com/850/ who turned out to be unexpectedly good at geography]], derailing our attempt to demonstrate their country's attitude toward the rest of the world."

* For Thanksgiving 2013, [=BuzzFeed=] asked its British staff [[https://www.buzzfeed.com/robinedds/its-thanksgiving-so-we-asked-some-brits-to-label-the-us-stat?utm_term=.bm2VEaYA93#.raKKZkGRaq to label a map of the US]], which was predictably hilarious. The next year, they asked their American staff to [[https://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/americans-try-to-place-european-countries-on-a-map?utm_term=.fvn4K2kygQ#.kn4GVymYRw label Europe]], with roughly the same results.

* A ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' sketch featured guest host Jerry Seinfeld playing a high-school history teacher. After all his students fail a test, he decides to adopt an interactive approach and opens a discussion about the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Battle of Britain]]. However, the students turn out to be too ignorant for the approach to work, as they don't even know who Britain was fighting. You can see it [[http://www.teachertube.com/video/seinfeld-history-lesson-241598 here]].

* According to Americans, [[http://www.nmmagazine.com/one-of-our-50-is-missing/ New Mexico]] is not part of the United States. The most egregious example of this was in 1996, when multiple New Mexicans were refused service when attempting to buy domestic tickets to the Atlanta Olympics. They were directed to buy from the appropriate agency in their "home country," i.e. Mexico.
* Some people still refer to Beijing as "Peking". For context: It used to be pronounced like Peking, but a sound change called palatalization occured in North China which changed some 'k' sounds to 'j' sounds (the same phenomenon is why English has hard and soft C and G). This change did not occur South China, where notably lies Hong Kong, the city Britain took in the Opium Wars. Thus, when the Brits asked what the locals' city was called, they got "Peking".
** Beijing however, is still ''officially'' still called "Pekin(g)" in French, Dutch, German, Russian, Castillian Spanish (but not in Latin America) and - amusingly - Japanese. (As mentioned, the "Peking" to "Beijing" thing is due to a sound change. Due to Japan's long history with China, they learned the pronunciation back when it was pronounced "Peking" by every Chinese and never bothered to update it.)

* Many older British people are surprised to hear that it isn't ''Malaya'' any more but ''Peninsular Malaysia'', Singapore is no longer the island extention of "Malaya" but a separate state in its own right, ''Ceylon'' is now Sri Lanki, Calcutta is, as far as they are concerned, still spelled with the letter "C", Burma is now Myanmar and not a neighboring country, and where on earth is ''Mumbai''? Is it anywhere near ''Bombay'', for goodness' sake? And the Conservative Party got negative press for its more right-wing elements selling t-shirts bearing the legend ''Why say "Zimbabwe" when you mean Rhodesia?''.[[note]]If you don't know why it's problematic, it's like saying "Why say Germany when you can mean the Third Reich?"[[/note]] And due to this, their offspring continue the trend of using the old names. And when both old and new names are used, it's easy to confuse which is which, or to think they are different countries.
* The Danish school system has a subject called "geography", but it's based ''much'' more around physical geography than human geography. Meaning that many Danish students will be able to tell you exactly what terrain and ecosystems that make up Brazil, but not ''where'' Brazil is (at least, they may not be truly sure except for "somewhere in South America"). Facts such as a country's location, its population number, its capital and the sorts are facts you'll have to find out yourself or be taught by someone else than your geography teacher. However, living in a very small country that is not as self-contained as the U.S., and being among the nationalities that love travelling the most, has helped to make most Danes not that global ignorant.

* Following the announcement that the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing were Chechens, so many Twitter users thought Chechens were from the Czech Republic that the Czech ambassador put out a statement which basically said, "we're not Chechnya". Ironically, "Chehi" ("The Czechs"), was a genuine Russian nickname for the Chechens during [[UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia the Nineties]].
* People will occasionally refer to Myanmar as its older colonial name, Burma. However, this is an unusual use of the trope, as generally these people are aware of Myanmar's "official" name but refuse to use it because it was developed by the hated military junta that ruled the country until 2010 (and still has a very big say in how the country is run), and thus consider it wasn't decided by the country's legitimate government and people. There's a reason the TV Tropes Useful Notes page for it is called "UsefulNotes/ThatSouthEastAsianCountry".
* There's a common joke amongst Brits that some foreigners (chiefly Americans) think that Scotland and Ireland are located where Ireland is, that England is the island to the right, that Wales and Northern Ireland don't exist, and that this whole area comprises Britain. Some Americans will describe themselves as Scots-Irish (instead of Celtic, which would be accurate), and Americans of Welsh descent seem to be quite rare. If nothing else, Americans will always take the time to proudly list all the countries they are descended from without showing any knowledge of those countries beyond stereotypes. This manifests itself most obviously in St. Patrick's Day celebrations, which bear little resemblance to how it's actually celebrated in Ireland. Scots-Irish does not refer to some mix of Celtic Scottish and Irish blood, but rather to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Scots_people Ulster Scots]], a very specific group. Of course, not all Americans who claim Scotch-Irish heritage are aware of that history, or understand the distinctions, and may indeed think of themselves as simply having both Scottish and Irish heritage. And good luck finding anyone (including most Britons!) who can find the Channel Islands, Shetlands, or Orkneys on a map. Virtually no one can even name any of them.

** A significant percentage of people picture South America being directly under North America, when it is actually more to the south east. Also, people tend to imagine Australia being much farther south than it really is.
** People often picture Africa as the same size as Europe, India as smaller than Great Britain, Greenland as a huge landmass in the north bigger than Africa, and Antarctica as a gigantic frozen continent in the south bigger than everything else put together. The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection#Examples_of_size_distortion Mercator projection]] is the one to blame, because of the way it distorts the latitude so everywhere near the equator is squeezed while places at higher latitudes are exaggerated. It's great for navigation, because it is consistent in preserving directions, but is grossly inadequate for teaching geography. The truth is that Africa is ''much'' bigger than the projection shows (it is the second biggest continent in the world for god's sake. You can fit two Europes and one Australia in it and still have room to spare), India is much bigger than Great Britain (it is the size of 14 Great Britains), Greenland is, though the world's largest island, smaller than Africa's [[UsefulNotes/DemocraticRepublicOfTheCongo second largest country]], and Antarctica is smaller than Russia and only drawn the way it is because its geographic center happens to be located near the South Pole.

* While Americans are infamous for not knowing that Asia has many more countries than China, Japan, and Korea, both they and a number of British folks have the disturbing counterpart idea that India ''isn't'' in Asia. Granted, it's not unusual even amongst geographers to consider it a separate region like how some might say Egypt is in a place called 'the Middle East' rather than Africa, but some go as far as to think it's separated from the mainland.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLooneyTunesShow'': In "Eligible Bachelors", [[CloudCuckoolander Lola]] somehow mistakes the Eiffel Tower for Stonehenge. While she and Bugs are in Paris and ''standing in front of the Tower''.
** She also mistook the Palace of Versailles for the White House and was surprised the Louvre was an art museum and not a shopping mall, despite claiming to be [[IveHeardOfThatWhatIsIt a Lourve lover.]]

* [[WesternAnimation/TotalDrama Total Drama All-Stars”]] [[BonusMaterial extra clips]] shows Lightning being washed away to Paris after his elimination and assuming he’s in Germany.

** Taken UpToEleven in "G.I. D'oh" when Homer asks "We're China, right?"

A third possiblity use is to show a character as being out of touch rather than stupid by using the old names for countries that no longer exist but did exist in their lifetime, like Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union. Unlike the above example, these characters are unlikely to be making a statement and are simply old, or otherwise haven't had any reason to check a map in the past decade. A common side effect for anyone from the Soviet Bloc who SleptThroughTheApocalypse of its disintegration.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', Randy tries warning Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger that California would be New Jersey's next victim after Colorado is taken over, only to be informed that Utah and Nevada lie between them. And he is a geologist. To be fair, they did manage to ''drive'' to China and Romania on two separate occasions...

'''Nicole:''' ''[pointing at Antartica]'' Okay, so if ''this'' is America...

This can be done with a character, to demonstrate his or her status as TheDitz, or with real people as part of a SelectiveStupidity feature.

* The trope is often exaggerated when applied to UsefulNotes/ChristopherColumbus, with people saying he thought the Earth was flat and wanted to sail to the edge or that he thought it was shaped like a pear and way smaller than it really was (or, conversely, that he was the only person who knew that Earth is round when everyone else believed that it was flat). Neither of these are true; while he ''did'' think he landed on a different continent than where he really did, ''most'' of the "in the know" people had the exact same misconception, so he can hardly be singled out for not knowing better.

* In the modern re-adaptation ''Pride: A [[Literature/PrideAndPrejudice Pride And Prejudice]] Remix'' by Ibi Zoboi (where the Bennett family is a working-class Afro-Latinix family in the fast gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick) the well-read Zuri is caught trying not to reveal her ignorance of certain locations in the world and even how to eat lobster (due to being too expensive), this is less a comment on her intellect and more on how her family's poverty limits how far they can travel (they have seen Times Square three times) and the locations Zuri isn't familiar with are popular vacation spots for the wealthy. About the wealthy Darcy family.
---> So far, I know that they've gone skiing in somewhere called Aspen, go to somebody named Martha's Vineyard every summer (except for this one, because of the move), and how they are still hoping to take a trip to some place called the Maldives.

* The trope is often exaggerated when applied to UsefulNotes/ChristopherColumbus, with people saying he thought the Earth was flat and wanted to sail to the edge or that he thought it was shaped like a pear and way smaller than it really was (or, conversely, that he was the only person who knew that Earth is round when everyons else believed that it was flat). Neither of these are true; while he ''did'' think he landed on a different continent than where he really did, ''most'' of the "in the know" people had the exact same misconception, so he can hardly be singled out for not knowing better.