SEEING as part of the United Kingdom lies to the north of the island of Ireland, you would think everyone in Britain could point out the Emerald Isle on a map – but you’d be wrong.
GoCompare Travel created an interactive map to test how well British and American citizens know Europe, and the results were a bit disconcerting.
From a sample of 1,000 people, one in 10 British residents were unable to identify Ireland on the atlas – that’s 100 people!
If that wasn’t alarming enough, 4 per cent of British people think Ireland is Denmark, while 2 per cent mistook the Emerald Isle for Iceland.
A shameful three per cent of British residents actually identified Ireland as Britain itself – which would put the Outer Hebrides of Scotland somewhere around Giant’s Causeway.
Slovakia proved the most difficult country in Europe to identify. A third (38 per cent) managed to point the Eastern European country out while another third (33 per cent) guessed Hungary.
A fifth (21 per cent) thought Slovakia was Latvia while eight per cent guessed Switzerland.
United States citizens were actually far worse when it came to identifying European countries on a map.
On average, British respondents got 65 per cent of the questions right compared to the US average, which was just 49.6 per cent.
Slovakia and Albania proved the most difficult countries to identify for Americans – with seven per cent of them confusing Albania for Britain.
How well do you know Europe? Take the test below...
