European geography quiz

Try this European geography quiz, if you dare. My score was 115-144. The small eastern European countries still give me a hard time. Moldova, Albania, Kosovo, Slovenia, Slovakia -- I get a headache trying to tell them apart.

This quiz brings up another thing I have been wondering for decades. The map treats the United Kingdom as one country. However, some Brits firmly claim that England, Scotland, and Wales are all separate countries. Meanwhile, others say they are different regions of the same country (the U.K.). Someone please set me straight on this once and for all.

Quote: Wizard

Try this European geography quiz, if you dare. My score was 115-144. The small eastern European countries still give me a hard time. Moldova, Albania, Kosovo, Slovenia, Slovakia -- I get a headache trying to tell them apart.

This quiz brings up another thing I have been wondering for decades. The map treats the United Kingdom as one country. However, some Brits firmly claim that England, Scotland, and Wales are all separate countries. Meanwhile, others say they are different regions of the same country (the U.K.). Someone please set me straight on this once and for all.

I managed 138-144.
England, Scotland,Wales, and Northern Ireland are referred to as constituent countries as part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The state is always referred to as the UK.

Brits do not like Americans referring to the country as England or to say the Queen of England. As far as they are concerned the last Queen of England died four years before the settlement of Jamestown VA, and we should know that by now. The original king of the entire island (James I) was considered to be the monarch of Great Britain, but the countries were still separate. In 1707 when the parliaments were merged then it became one kingdom and officially adopted the name Great Britain.

In the 19th century with the conquest of all of Ireland it became the United Kingdom. When southern Ireland became a republic the name UK was retained, but the word Northern was inserted in front of Ireland.

The resettled people were called Ulster-Scots, but the immigrants to America are usually called Scots-Irish (or Scotch-Irish) and are the dominant group in the hills of Appalachia.

The term Great Britain does not mean awesome Britain. It is a very old term that predates the empire by hundreds of years. James I made it the unofficial name of the kingdom when he combined Scotland to England and Wales. It was formally adopted in 1707 when the parliaments merged. It is called great to distinguish it from lesser Britain (or Brittany) which is one of the celtic kingdoms that is part of present day France. When the Anglo Saxons came and conquered present day England after the Roman empire fell, the celtic people retreated to Cornwall, Wales, and some crossed the channel to Brittany. Many people think Great Britain refers to the British empire.

The adjective British is considered acceptable, because most of the people in Northern Ireland are descendant of Scotish and English settlers in the 17th century. After the Irish peerage was ended once and for all (called the Flight of the Earls) there was a lot of forcible settlement in northern Ireland which changed the ethnic makeup of the region to mostly British. Southern Ireland remained mostly celtic. British is OK, but Britain or Great Britain is not acceptable if you mean the entire state. If you say English or England it should be completely clear that you are talking about the constituent country. If someone from the UK says they are English or Scottish, they are making a deliberate point about their ethnicity.

The term that is completely archaic is British Isles, since this term was formerly used to include the current Republic of Ireland.



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Sometimes the phrase that is used is that Europe is simultaneously facing McDonald-ization and Balkan-ization as the financial, military and environmental organizations grow ever bigger. At the same time some of the unions that formed over the last several hundred years are dissolving as there is no longer any economic and military need for them. Scotland, Cornwall, Wales and Isle of Man and Northern Ireland all have some kind of independence movement (as does Hawaii in the USA). The old divisions may be influenced by the new multi-cultural world. Northern Ireland is more ethnically uniform than any state in the USA, even Vermont. At the same time London is becoming one of the most diverse major cities in the world. The desire to switch to the Euro currency may be a factor.

It is more likely that Italy will break into constituent countries before the UK. They have been a unified country for 140 years, and regionalism is stronger in Italy.

I got a 77 on the European quiz. I noticed that a good memory of the wrong guesses can help later on. Of course, I don't have that kind of good memory...

On the plus side, I got a 139 out of 150 on the USA states quiz!

You want to feel even better? Try the Oceans / Continents quiz. I got a 36 out of 36!

There was only one question that threw me. I never knew there was an ocean named "Southern Ocean". But it's easy to guess where that is!

Hmmm.... Wikipedia has an article on EVERYTHING!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ocean

Its the United Kingdom of Great Britain which consists of Northern Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland. Certain islands such as the Isle of Mann are dependencies with their foreign affairs handled by the UK. Some of those islands still enforce public whipping laws for drunks as a few tourists may from time to time discover. As oil in the North Sea becomes more available, Scottish independence movements are re-asserting themselves. The Scottish Nationalist Party is expected to crank up the rhetoric even more soon.

Everyone thinks that during WW-Two the RAF pilots were heroes, as of course they were, but it should be remembered that the British officer who insisted that the channel islands not be defended and that channel convoys be abandoned was the real hero for without allowing the channel islands to be occupied by Germany and the channel convoys to be cancelled, there is no way Britain would have had the planes and pilots left to withstand the London Blitz.

I suppose the 700 people who died in the concentration camps on the island was a fairly small number of the 450K Brits who died in the War, but it is a still difficult to give up the islands without firing a shot. At least they took the children to the mainland.

I got 94 out of 96 for Mexico. Try and top that Nareed.

I got 141 out of 144 even though I didn't miss a question. Something is wrong with the quiz. I make it my business to know the location of most countries because I think it's important. Plus I like quizzes.

Regarding the U.K.: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are separate countries in a political union with Great Britain. There is a lot of history behind it because they all used to be separate sovereign states (except N.I.), but were conquered and subjugated pretty heavily by a series of English Kings, most notably Edward I and others. James the First of England was James the Sixth of Scotland and united the crowns of England and Scotland in 1603, creating a period of semi-grudging unity that has lasted up until a few years ago, when the process of devolution (giving of more autonomy to the constituent nations) began. Wales has never been big fans of England, and of course Northern Ireland has a ton of problems.

The four countries compete separately in all sporting competitions, including the World Cup (but not the Olympics). Britain and Ireland sometimes compete together in Rugby. Tennis star Andy Murray represents the U.K. officially, but will say he plays for Scotland. He made a big row recently when he said he hoped the English soccer team would lose a important game.

Edit: 63 on Mexico. That's tough!

Quote: teddys

I got 141 out of 144 even though I didn't miss a question. Something is wrong with the quiz. I make it my business to know the location of most countries because I think it's important. Plus I like quizzes.

Regarding the U.K., England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are separate countries in a political union with Great Britain. There is a lot of history behind it because they all used to be separate sovereign states (except N.I.), but were conquered and subjugated pretty heavily by a series of English Kings, most notably Edward I and others. James the First of England was James the Sixth of Scotland and united the crowns of England and Scotland in 1603, creating a period of semi-grudging unity that has lasted up until a few years ago, when the process of devolution (giving of more autonomy to the constituent nations) began. Wales has never been big fans of England, and of course Northern Ireland has a ton of problems.

The four countries compete separately in all sporting competitions, including the World Cup (but not the Olympics). Britain and Ireland sometimes compete together in Rugby. Tennis star Andy Murray represents the U.K. officially, but will say he plays for Scotland. He made a big row recently when he said he hoped the English soccer team would lose a important game.

Edit: 63 on Mexico. That's tough!

I think you fat fingered the Europe quiz and skipped a question. I think I did the same thing. You have to have studied Mexico since most people aren't familiar with the states. I lived there for most of a year.

Devolution is fairly common in much of Europe. Parts of Italy and Spain are autonomous regions. Almost every country of a reasonable size in Europe is a collection of old kingdoms.

I personally thought by now that we would see more countries under the umbrella of EU. At the very least Catalonia would be a country by now.

Try the Europe again, but select the capital cities. That makes it tougher.

I got 122 on the Europe Quiz.

And everyone already beat me to the UK question. Im just too slow these days.

Quote: Croupier

I got 122 on the Europe Quiz.

And everyone already beat me to the UK question. Im just too slow these days.

Can you do the monarchs? Willy Willy Harry Steve ...

Willy, Willy, Harry, Steve

Harry, Dick, John, Henry 3

Edward 1,2,3, Richard 2

Henry 4,5,6 then who

Edward 4,5, Dick the bad

Harry, Harry, Ned the lad

Mary, Elizabeth, James' reign

Charlie, Charlie, James again

William and Mary, Anna gloria

4 Georges, William, Victoria

Eddie 7, Georgie 5 and he, thank God, is still alive.'

Is I believe the classic version. With updates for current standings it reads

'Eddie 7 and Georgie 5

Eddie 8 gave up for love

George the 6th, now Lizzie 2

keeps Charles 3 waiting, just like you,

hoping that his son, Willie 5,

will rule us well in a long life.'

I did have to cheat and look up a couple of the lines.

141, should have been 142, but I re-clicked Slovakia instead of the Czech Republic.

Here's a Venn diagram of the UK :

http://qntm.org/uk

England, Scotland and Wales (and Northern Ireland) are separate countries forming a single state. I am not aware of another State/Country that has a similar set up. As the UK has no formal constitution, it's all a bit vague. The separation of the countries for football and rugby purposes is a hold over from the days when sport was starting out.

Plus Scotland does have it's own bank notes and a separate legal system, and with devolution more autonomy over it's economy. It's like a state within a state (qv Quebec/Canada in some ways).

It's no less confusing than the Holy Trinity...

For a really confusing item, the Irish Rugby and Tennis teams are made up of players from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. That's be a bit like the Cuban baseball team consisting of players from Cuba and Florida.

A lot of the Irish sports teams are all-island nowadays. It's a good move for unity. Football teams are still separate. The Irish Rugby league has a team representing Ulster. I don't know the politics behind it but the Northern Ireland football team is mostly supported by Protestants. Catholics tend to support the Republic of Ireland team. Then of course there's the whole Rangers/Celtic thing.

Sports shouldn't be politicized.

Quote: thecesspit

England, Scotland and Wales (and Northern Ireland) are separate countries forming a single state. I am not aware of another State/Country that has a similar set up. As the UK has no formal constitution, it's all a bit vague.

Quite a lot of countries have autonomous regions where people have a unique ethnic identity. China, Italy, Spain, etc. places like Sicily, Sardinia, Catalonia, Galicia, Canary Islands, Tibet etc. I would have to look them all up.

But the UK is the only one where the largest and most populous region is considered a region on par with the smaller regions. Normally, England would be the state, and the smaller places would be autonomous regions.

But London, Toronto, and New York are almost developing into there own kind of society. They say before I am dead that the London and New York will be connected by a train.

130. I knew where Andorra was ;)

Nice cross-section of a floating tunnel, Paco. The idea is so magnificently outrageous it compleis with Einstein's dictum: "If the idea does not seem absurd at first, thent her eis no hope for it."

The idea, BTW, is to have a hypersonic maglev train do the NYC-London run in a little under one hour.

Nareed
Can you do Mexico. No cheating now.

Quote: pacomartin

Nareed
Can you do Mexico. No cheating now.

91 out of 96. Excuses to follow

110 / 144 - I agree with most everyone - it's not the same that we all learned in elementary school, since most of the Eastern European countries are much smaller now than they were when I learned geography. ;)

-B

I got 142 of 144. I messed up on Montenegro vs Serbia. I've always been pretty good with maps though. Wish I was as good at gambling as I am at geography.

Only 45 on the Mexico quiz though.

World (or Europe Game) available online. This one uses random cities and you have to see how close you get. My score was 9128 for ten cities.

For an extreme challenge, I would wager that the Caribbean geography quiz is by far the most difficult on the site. I've traveled the region extensively and still have trouble keeping all those tiny islands straight.

Quote: OneAngryDwarf

For an extreme challenge, I would wager that the Caribbean geography quiz is by far the most difficult on the site. I've traveled the region extensively and still have trouble keeping all those tiny islands straight.

53 out of 66

Quote: pacomartin

World (or Europe Game) available online. This one uses random cities and you have to see how close you get. My score was 9128 for ten cities.

7376. I was close but not precise enough. 9229 on Europe.

52 on Carribean.

Quote: OneAngryDwarf

For an extreme challenge, I would wager that the Caribbean geography quiz is by far the most difficult on the site. I've traveled the region extensively and still have trouble keeping all those tiny islands straight.

I did OK on the Caribbean quiz, but this one ate me alive.

117/144 in Europe, 33/66 in Caribbean. My wife is from Europe, and her family from the Caribbean. Don't let her find out that this American is so clueless.

Quote: rdw4potus

I did OK on the Caribbean quiz, but this one ate me alive.

I got a 69. That is tough!

I only got 36 on the Caribbean quiz - I guess I need to spend more vacation time down there, eh? I tried the Australia/Oceania quiz and got 50 of 96. Similar problems as with the Caribbean quiz. So many little islands or island groups.

Try this European map game which is being touted as a child's educational toy. Do a few test runs with the outlines (easy), but then try it without the outlines (not so easy).