Childhood Misconceptions of Geography

Also, after I had first been told of Adolf Hitler by my parents, I came away with the impression that he was some midget creep who ran around the street shouting "Heil Hitler!" to random strangers with the intent of being rude to them,

I thought Jamaica was located in Africa because I thought only niggers lived in Africa.

I thought france people were black, because of their football team

>>70828291
>>70828473
wow you guy are pretty retarded
>>70829863
you're not wrong

everytime i heard any country name i had my own map in my mind as a child
and i don't remember how some areas looked like, but it was really disappointing to see it looks otherwise when they taught me in school

I though Sweden was just an imaginary place where Wally Walrus lived.

>>70828291
Only ones I can think of are
>thought Czechoslovakia was a thing because I had only ever heard of it in a historical context
>always got Bulgaria and Belarus mixed up because they both start with a B and Eastern Europe was an irrelevant mess to me at the time

>>70828291
I thought Australia was a small island

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i used to think Huston was the guy who's in charge of american space missions.
Later when i discovered that it was actually a city i thought that was where rocket were lunched, but it was actually from an other city.
Same thing for Baïkonour being in Kazakhstan instead of Russia. Big disapointment.

>>70830066
Also I thought it didn't snow anywhere in the world except for North America, Europe and Russia and that England received a considerable amount of snow during winter.

I thought all european countries were in a district of my city, the red square was in the east district, the colosseum in the south distruct, the eiffel tower in the west, and I couldn't see those because of the height of buildings

>>70828291
I thought that North America in its entirety belonged to the United States.

I thought the earth was round

But a friend of mine failed his geography bac (" academic qualification which French students take at the end of high school") : he thought Taiwan was next to Cuba because it sounds like Hawaï.
No need to explain he didn't know where hawaï is either.

>>70830066
i always mixed up
croatia and bulgaria
macedonia and moldova
sweden and scotland

>>70828291
I thought Sweden and Switzerland and that all of Africa was a desert

>>70830265
Sweden and Switzerland were the same*

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I thought every country was full with people and that new people could only exist because old ones died.

i used to mix up the czech republic and china

I thought that the English hailed from India because of similar starting names (Inglesi, and India).
I also thought that Finland was on the North Pole, because conflicting stories locating Santa Claus in different places

I used to blurt out random sounds and assume that they were words in a foreign language and asked my mother what they meant (at the time I assumed that my mum knew everything because she was a grownup).

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The size of Africa. In my childhood it was small, empty and full of skinny black kids.

I got Mexico and China confused a lot. I thought they spoke Chinese in Mexico...

there was one pale redhead kabyle girl at my school so i thought they were a nordic country instead of shitskins

I didn't know the difference between France, Germany and America.

I thought that Chechenia must be the second largest country in the world because they were fighting Russia which is the largest.

I though Turkey was near Greenland because Turkey is Turkki in Finnish and turkki also means furin Finnish and Inuits and Eskimos wear fur clothing.

I was confused between Ukraine and Hungary because in Finnish they are Ukraina and Unkari. Both start with U and have k, n, i, r and a in them.

I thought Cyprus was part of Greece.

I didn't know the difference between England and Great Britain.

I thought Belgian people spoke Belgian and Swiss people Swiss. I thought only nation states exist. I also thought Finnish is the most easy language because all the other languages sounded like gibberish to me.

All this was when I was like 5 years old. By 7 I already knew better

>>70830590
>In my childhood it was small, empty and full of skinny black kids.
well you're not wrong

>>70831780
>I thought that Chechenia must be the second largest country in the world because they were fighting Russia which is the largest.
I miss having this kind of logic

I thought Europe was in Bulgaria.

>>70828291
I always used to think that UK was the abreviation for Ukraine

>>70828291
I thought that California was canada and canada was California

>>70832670
And now you probably think that Bulgaria is in Europe? I have bad news for you...

>>70830200
You aren't wrong

>>70829863
holy shit i thought the exact same thing

>>70828291
Finland is nordic,Balts and Hungary are slavic.
Romanians and Moldovans are gypsies.

I thought people in Europe still acted like the Middle Ages

i used to think china japan and germany was similir to each other. (i thought germany was asian)

i thought Hitler was a group of people ( ler is the plural suffix in turkish)

i thought all black people were ugly

i thought europe and america was gigantic while the rest of the world was small

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>>70828291
I always thought that Cambodia was in Africa. The name just doesn't sound asian at all.

>>70837154
You weren't far off.

>>70830339
I was afraid we would run out of air one day.

I thought Germans and Poles were the same people, Turks were no different than other Arabs, thought they were a continuation of Iran.
Was almost oblivious that there was a country next to me calling itself Macedonia.

Couldn't tell any country in Eastern Europe apart.

Always confused Sweden with Finland.

And that was before I came here.

Also that England was the UK

mixed sweden and switzerland because in turkish they are called isveç and isviçre respectively.

>>70837865
>(i thought germany was asian)
not wrong, we took care of that.
>i thought all black people were ugly
not wrong.

As a kid i thought that all african people spoke something like " mutumbele wuatango babungurunguru mashelele" then i discovered that it's true

I thought Washington state was where the president lived.

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I thought every country had an almost equal population and were divided up the way they are now so wars would be fair

I thought Europe was full of rich fancy people that lived in castles

I thought I was white.

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When I was a kid and there was buzz about Quebec wanting to separate from Canada, I thought they were going to cut it off with chainsaws and sail it into the ocean.

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When I was about 6 I thought that most of Eurasia was America. On American TV shows I saw maps of just the US like on the right but the map I had as a child didn't have borders marked. So I thought that Eurasia must be where America is because of these minor similarities and the maps I saw on cartoons were just less detailed. Also everyone always said that America was really big.
Then my brother corrected me.

i thought i was turkish

i am greek

I never had any misconceptions. when I was very young I had an autistic obsession with topography.

>>70828291
Got quite a few of those:
1. I thought they spoke Australian in Australia and I was convinced it was not a civilized country but just full of tribe people
2. I always thought Albania is somewhere in the middle of asia or something.
3. Thought Montenegro wasn't a country but literally a huge black mountain.

>>70845134
>3. Thought Montenegro wasn't a country but literally a huge black mountain.
that would be cool as shit, I never thought that but I'm still disappointed it's not true

I always mixed Hungary with Netherlands , idk why and I though that all people are Serbians just living in different countries

I used to think Japan was in africa for some reason

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I saw Kaliningrad on a map without any name on it and thought it was an unclaimed piece of land.

>>70831780
>I was confused between Ukraine and Hungary because in Finnish they are Ukraina and Unkari. Both start with U and have k, n, i, r and a in them.
I had a similar thing with Hungary and Bulgaria. One because their flags were similar but also because Bulgaria starts with bolg which is Irish for stomach and Hungary sounds like hungry.

I used to think that swedish people are mostly blondeand white, although a lot have some black/brown skintone

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>>70845295
>idk why and I though that all people are Serbians just living in different countries

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>>70845295
but we are

>>70831780
>I didn't know the difference between England and Great Britain.

a suprising amount of adults still don't know the difference. don't even excpect people to know the difference between britain, great britain, the UK and brittany