The world according to Americans: Map reveals how students imagine our planet

14:49 • 03.01.14
Science/tech

Students from Michigan have found out that they can draw a map by memory when they were asked to do so without any atlas to guide them, reports the Daily Mail.


Most people missed the UK, New Zealand, Madagascar, Scandinavia, Greenland, and a huge chunk of the Indian subcontinent.


The size of Indonesia and the Philippines shrunk dramatically, and there was only a tiny glimpse of Antarctica in some of the drawings.


Australia, Alaska and Japan didn’t always make the cut either, and there was some debate as to how big Canada and Russia were in relation to each other.


Asia and Africa, meanwhile, were often disconnected and incredibly swollen in size, taking up large parts of the ocean.


Reddit user zaaakk shared the results after digitally merging the drawings to see if they resembled anything close to the Earth as it is today.


As well as layering the images on top of one another, zaaakk created a mockup that spliced his distorted map with geographic details captured from Nasa satellites.


The map, posted on Reddit, is said to reveal just how little a large majority of people know about the geography of the Earth.


‘To give an idea of the population sampled, I did this in the summer of 2012 at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor campus,’ said zaaakk.


“Most were 18-22, and there was a roughly even split between male and female. I'm pretty sure they were all American except one Italian guy.”


Have a go yourself and see how you do. You might surprise yourself at how much - or just how little - you remember.
 

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