You've probably seen this, but recently there was some study published about the lack of knowledge Americans have when it comes to world or even national geography. We get this all the time when we tell people about our work in Kenya. "Now, where in Asia is that?" "Is that in Central or South Ameria?" If they know it's even in Africa I'm surprised. Now, geography is somewhat of a passion of mine, I've been known to go to Barnes and Noble and read maps teh whole time, so I'm kind of an outlier here, and some of these were tough, but these figures just astonish me. It's not like we are trying to locate Benin or Uraguay or some of the Indonesian Islands:

Among the findings:

One-third of respondents couldn’t pinpoint Louisiana on a map and 48percent were unable to locate Mississippi.

Fewer than three in 10 think it important to know the locations ofcountries in the news and just 14 percent believe speaking anotherlanguage is a necessary skill.

Two-thirds didn’t know that the earthquake that killed 70,000 people inOctober 2005 occurred in Pakistan.

Six in 10 could not find Iraq on a map of the Middle East.

While the outsourcing of jobs to India has been a major U.S. businessstory, 47 percent could not find the Indian subcontinent on a map of Asia.

While Israeli-Palestinian strife has been in the news for the entire livesof the respondents, 75 percent were unable to locate Israel on a map ofthe Middle East.

Nearly three-quarters incorrectly named English as the most widely spokennative language.

Six in 10 did not know the border between North and South Korea is themost heavily fortified in the world. Thirty percent thought the mostheavily fortified border was between the United States and Mexico.