Lost generation
The National Geographic-Roper Public Affairs geography survey of young adult Americans found:
- Only 37 percent could identify Iraq on a map of the Middle East. (As Tribune readers surely know, it's the country highlighted above.)
- Only 12 percent could locate Afghanistan on a map of Asia.
- One of the few bright spots was that 69 percent could identify China on a map. But on another aspect of China, they did far worse. In a multiple-choice quiz, only 18 percent answered correctly that Mandarin Chinese is the most widely spoken native language in the world. Most people--74 percent--thought it was English.
- While the outsourcing of jobs to India has been a major U.S. business story, 47 percent could not find the Indian subcontinent on a map of Asia.
- When given a list of four countries (Indonesia, India, Armenia and South Africa) and asked which one was majority Muslim, only 25 percent said correctly that it was Indonesia. Nearly half (48 percent) answered India, which is only 13 percent Muslim.
- While Israeli-Palestinian strife has been in the news for the entire lives of the respondents, 75 percent were unable to locate Israel on a map of the Middle East.
- Six in 10 did not know that the border between North and South Korea is the most heavily fortified in the world. Thirty percent thought the most heavily fortified border was between the United States and Mexico.
- Two-thirds didn't know that the earthquake that killed 70,000 people in October 2005 occurred in Pakistan.
