A Grade 4 lesson that Americans Don’t Know
Every so often one of those talking puppets on television puts on an episode to ask people on the street questions on where a country is on a map. The answers are shockingly wrong. And it’s not like, “where’s Togo?” its like “where’s Canada?” and the answers are sickeningly incorrect.
Mark Dice on YouTube has a hilarious compilation of being on the street with a bar of precious metal and a bar of candy–and guess what people choose all of the time. He’s done it with gold, a kilo of silver, a 10 oz bar of silver, everything. There’s about a dozen episodes and deliberately stands outside of a coin shop to verify the purity of the metal. On that note:
Here’s some geography that could be useful for travel bugs eating their Hershey bars on the plane.
Africa—54
Population: 1,429,040,302
Main Languages: Swahili, Arabic, French, Portuguese, Amharic, Yoruba, Hausa (anywhere from 1000 to 2000 languages!)
North America- 3
Population: 580,000,000
Main Language: English & Spanish
Considered North America:
- Caribbean- 14 countries and 8 territories/collectives (English, French, Creole).
- Central America- 7 countries (Main language: Spanish and English)
You may have heard these acronyms:
NAFTA= Canada, USA, Mexico
NATO= Canada, USA, EEA (minus Ireland, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria), North Macedonia, Turkey, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro
CARICOM= Barbados, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Belize, Bahamas, Saint Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Guyana, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Trinidad & Tobago, St Vincent, Suriname.
South America- 10
Population: 440,250,794
Main Language: Spanish and Portuguese
Mercosur: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay
Europe-44 sovereign countries (territories exist as well).
Population: 748,000,000
Main Languages: French, German, Italian, Russian, English
Eurozone= Countries where their currencies are denominated in the Euro
European Union= 27 member states across Europe
European Economic Area= EU + Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
United Kingdom= Northern Ireland, Wales, England, Scotland
Asia- 48
Population: 4,758,600,000
Main Language: Arabic, Mandarin, Hindi, Japanese, Indonesian,
Eurasian Economic Union: Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan
Shaghai Cooperation Council: Uzbekistan, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Iran, India
BRICS= Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa
OPEC (Oil Petroleum Exporting Countries)= Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Algeria, Gabon, Venezuela, Libya, Kuwait, Iran, Equatorial Guinea, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Republic of the Congo, Angola
OPEC+= OPEC Members + Mexico, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Oman, Sudan, South Sudan, Russia
Oceania-14
Population: 45,665,856
Languages: Colonial languages include Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish & French with English being spoken throughout the continent. It’s worth mentioning that hundreds of languages exist between Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia.
The people of the world overwhelmingly live in Asia and Africa!
*Main languages differ by region and local population*
Here is a great way to remember all those countries, unions and numbers:
#StayOnTheBall
