History Main / GlobalIgnorance

* Used as a plot point in ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam0080WarInThePocket Gundam 0080]]''. Bernie, [[DressingAsTheEnemy posing as a Federation soldier]], claims to be from Australia while making small talk and mentions how he used to love playing in the snow around Christmastime. [[EurekaMoment Several minutes later, the man he was talking to realizes]] that the Southern Hemisphere has '''warm''' weather in December; this is the mistake that blows the team's cover [[spoiler:and gets everyone but Bernie killed. Not to mention that Sydney was wiped out by The ColonyDrop and no longer exists at that time, anyone from Sydney should not be talking like that about it.]]

* In the Franchise/MarvelUniverse, a renegade operator of the Red Ronin mecha attempted to travel to the Soviet Union to start a series of incidents to begin WorldWar3. Fortunately, the idiot decided to do that by flying East instead of North, the shortest aerial route, to reach that nation. This allowed the ComicBook/TheAvengers to intercept and stop it in New York City.

* When Frank, Dee, and Mac tried to play "50 States" in ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'', Mac and Dee continually name states like "West Dakota", much to Frank's amusement.

* 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. [[http://www.teachertube.com/video/seinfeld-history-lesson-241598 You can see it here.]]

* One ''Webcomic/BatmanAndSons'' strip has [[Franchise/TheFlash Barry Allen]] remarking that Wally doesn't want to go to England and have to learn a new language. Bruce points out "They speak English there", and Barry (with the perfect expression of frustration on his face) responds "I know." Of course, some US expats living in the UK and vice versa would probably argue that Wally [[SeparatedByACommonLanguage actually has a point...]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', Randy tries warning then-governor 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...

* In a [[http://onepiece.wikia.com/wiki/SBS SBS]] manga column for ''Franchise/OnePiece'', a fan asked Creator/EiichiroOda which real world ''countries'' each of the Straw Hats would come from. He answers by saying that Luffy would be UsefulNotes/{{Brazil}}ian, Zoro is UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}ese, Nami's UsefulNotes/{{Swed|en}}ish, Sanji's UsefulNotes/{{Fr|ance}}ench, Chopper's UsefulNotes/{{Canad|a}}ian, Robin's UsefulNotes/{{Russia}}n, Franky's [[UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates American]], Brook's UsefulNotes/{{Austria}}n... and Usopp? Oda says that he's ''UsefulNotes/{{Africa}}n'', giving the name of a continent instead of a country.
* [[http://www.nmmagazine.com/one-of-our-50-is-missing/ According to Americans,]] UsefulNotes/NewMexico is not part of UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates. The most egregious example of this was in 1996, when multiple New Mexicans were refused service when attempting to buy domestic tickets to the UsefulNotes/{{Atlanta}} Olympics. They were directed to buy from the appropriate agency in their "home country," i.e. UsefulNotes/{{Mexico}}.

* A certain [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMT3vuSQk3g viral video]] from 2016 has a woman UsefulNotes/{{trigger}}ed over...a Lyft driver's hula doll accessory in his car. During the middle of her rant (at the start of the video), she calls UsefulNotes/{{Hawaii}} a ''continent''. Naturally, everyone who's seen this video will [[NeverLiveItDown never, ever forget that]].

Of course there are greater and lesser degrees of this trope, and it can be used in subtly different ways. Not knowing the name of the capital of the country a character is currently in almost certainly is showing how the character is genuinely stupid, while being unable to name all of the former Yugoslavian republics[[note]]Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia; Kosovo is an interesting addition, though, as only 97 of the 193 United Nations members [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_Kosovo recognise its independence]][[/note]] is unlikely to be saying a character is dumb unless its being asked by TheSmartGuy to demean a character. However this can backfire as the 'genius' character demands another name--the capital of Belarus[[note]]Minsk[[/note]]--and ends up stumping themselves.

** Some people even tend to believe the Middle East includes everything from Morocco [[note]] North African [[/note]] to Bangladesh [[note]] South Asian [[/note]] and in between. When in reality the Middle East does not include countries of South Asia or North Africa except Egypt which is partially West Asian thanks to its Sinai Peninsula.

* On that note, a surprising amount of Americans seem to think "South America" begins at the US[=/=]Mexico border. Mexico is, geographically speaking, still in North America. In fact, geographers consider South America to start at UsefulNotes/{{Colombia}}. (If the North-Central-South schema is used, [[DependingOnTheWriter it is sometimes considered Central and sometimes not.]] The UN's political region definition considers Mexico Central American for instance.)

* 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 exclaims: "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]].)

* In ''Film/KnivesOut'', the racist, classist Thrombeys do not know what country Marta, their patriarch's nurse, is from and simply guess a random South American country whenever the subject comes up, to make it seem like they're more knowledgeable and empathetic to her [[CondescendingCompassion than they really are]]. Richard even provides two completely different countries (first Paraguay, then Uruguay) on separate occasions, while his son Ransom assumes she's from Brazil despite Marta clearly speaking Spanish.

* In ''Film/DieHard'', a psychiatrist interviewed on the news brings up his book on "[[StockholmSyndrome Helsinki Syndrome]]", as he calls it (presumably Stockholm has copyrighted itself and wouldn't give the rights). The newsreader cuts into clarify that Helsinki is in Sweden, and is quickly corrected -- "Finland."

* In ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'', Touma Kamijou is very ignorant about topics like geography and history, which the other characters find really annoying. He tries to use the excuse that he's a Japanese student and shouldn't be expected to be knowledgeable about countries like Denmark, but none of the other Japanese characters have this problem.

* In one episode of ''Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway'', Drew Carey called Africa a great country. Greg Proops responds "It's also a ''continent'' if you're a geographer!" The contestants turned it into a RunningGag for the rest of the episode.

* In the first episode of ''Series/TheLastOfUs2023'', Joel apparently thinks that Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, is located in the Middle East and Tommy confusing it for a country. They were then corrected by an exasperated Sarah.

** In fact many people (especially Americans) tend to struggle to accept that South Asian countries and West Asian countries are Asian due to believing Indian Sub-Continent and the Middle East are seperate continents. Meanwhile in nations like the UK a d Sweden, where British South Asians and Swedish West Asians make up the majority of Asians in their respective nations, are considered the typical Asian ethnicities.

* While Americans are infamous for not knowing that UsefulNotes/{{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 UsefulNotes/{{Egypt}} is in a place called 'UsefulNotes/TheMiddleEast' rather than Africa, but some go as far as to think it's separated from the mainland. The term "Indian subcontinent" may be at fault, since it's rather misleading. ("A subcontinent means a small continent, which is still a continent!")

* [[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]]They likely confused it with An''gol''a.[[/note]] And that's not even getting into the State Department's official "[[{{Bulungi}} Map of Africa]]".

* Some people still refer to UsefulNotes/{{Beijing}} as "Peking". For context: It used to be pronounced like Peking, but a sound change called palatalization occurred 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 UsefulNotes/HongKong, the city UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} took in the Opium Wars. Thus, when the Brits asked what the locals' city was called, they got "Peking".

* A university professor once failed a student for comparing the social media culture of the United States and Australia because, since it's a continent in its own right, she wasn't aware that Australia is an actual country. The mistake was later rectified after the student was able to convince her that Australia is an actual country. She was fired for her ignorance and passive-aggressive NeverMyFault attitude[[note]]"Please make sure the date, the facts, and the information you provide in your report is about Australia the country and not Australia the continent," as if [[DistinctionWithoutADifference they aren't practically the same thing]][[/note]] after rectifying ''her'' mistake, and the student was refunded despite graduating because she almost failed her course for an unfair reason.

* On that note, a surprising amount of Americans seem to think "South America" begins at the US[=/=]Mexico border. Mexico is, geographically speaking, still in North America. In fact, geographers consider South America to star at UsefulNotes/{{Colombia}}. (If the North-Central-South schema is used, [[DependingOnTheWriter it is sometimes considered Central and sometimes not.]] The UN's political region definition considers Mexico Central American for instance.)

* In ''Film/KnivesOut'', the racist, classist Thrombeys do not know what country their patriarch's nurse Marta is from and simply guess random South American countries. One character gives out two completely different countries on different occasions, while another thinks she's from Brazil despite Marta clearly speaking Spanish.

* In ''VideoGame/StrongBadsCoolGameForAttractivePeople: Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective'', Dangeresque, in the StylisticSuck ShowWithinAShow, discovers that is father has been hanging around Venice. In a small badly-edited-out scripting mistake, he declares that it's time he heads to France ''(JumpCut)'' [[VerbalBackspace Italy]]!

* In ''VideoGame/Persona5'', Ryuji wonders how Yusuke is going to take a plane from Tokyo to Los Angeles, thinking that Los Angeles is both in the middle of the United States and the capital city of the country. The other characters all immediately mock him via text messages.

* In ''Film/KnivesOut'', the racist, classist Thrombeys do not know what country their nurse Marta is from and simply guess random Central/South American countries. One character gives out multiple completely different countries and another thinks she's from Brazil despite Marta clearly speaking Spanish.

* On that note, a surprising amount of Americans seem to think "South America" begins at the US[=/=]Mexico border. Mexico is, geographically speaking, still in North America. In fact, geographers consider south America to star at UsefulNotes/{{Colombia}}. (If the North-Central-South schema is used, [[DependingOnTheWriter it is sometimes considered Central and sometimes not.]] The UN's political region definition considers Mexico Central, for instance.]]