US's Online Geographers Don't Look Out of Place

For those armchair travellers who delight in sneering at the average American's appalling knowledge of basic geography: sit up and take notice. An online quiz set by campaigners to promote greater awareness of the world outside our borders shows Britons and Americans closely matched.

The 2006 Geography Cup, a collaboration between a geography campaigner from Atlanta and a teacher from Oxfordshire, allows contestants two minutes to place 10 randomly selected countries on an interactive map, and answer three topical questions.

They might be asked to locate the country most devastated by the 2004 tsunami, or most affected by the spread of HIV-Aids. So far more than 18,000 people have tried their luck.

The quiz (geographycup.com) runs until the end of the month.

Most people are flummoxed by the Pacific Island states, such as Tuvalu, and the Caribbean Islands. They are also a little hazy about the location of countries in Africa. And that is true for players on both sides of the Atlantic.

"It really is neck and neck," said Daniel Raven-Ellison, who teaches geography at a school in Woodcote, south Oxfordshire. "A lot of Brits take the mick out of Americans for not having knowledge about geography, but this might take people aback."

For Roger Andresen, a former fibre optics engineer, the quiz is the culmination of a four-year campaign to increase Americans' awareness of their surroundings. He is the son of an airline executive who travelled extensively as a child and was stung by a 2002 survey in which Americans scored second to last in geographical knowledge among people of industrialised countries.

He believes America's actions on the world stage have been handicapped by that lack of knowledge. "I do think there is a link," Mr Andresen said. "We could have made better decisions with a better understanding of geography."