You know? I have to think about it because it feels to me like Sydney should be on the west coast, but I know that it isn't. Part of that, frankly is that I often look at a globe and you all are upside down.
Americans aren't so much ignorant as enamored with themselves. A huge fraction of the people of the US honestly believe that America and Americans are just better than and so consequently if you are in Lichtenstein or Uzbekistan it's all the same neighborhood and who cares?
I mean really. If we're not smarter than everybody else how come we let a South African genius take over our Automobile business and our Space Flight industry? He's soon going to be the premier ISP on earth and THEN you'll see how smart we really are.
I wouldn't say ignorant. More like classically trained. Just from my experience and people I talk to I'm saying us Americans, as a group, shouldn't be proud of our geography knowledge--we suck at it.
I'll bet there is a place on the innerwebs where they've run a 'see the shape name the state' test over the years and I'll just bet the numbers are brutal. That's of our own states. Let alone countries of the world.