How many states do you know?

[baratron]

Richard and I were watching an episode of "Friends" in which they play a game where you have to name as many states of the USA as you can in 6 minutes. So we decided to have a go at this ourselves. Between us, we managed 41 states, which I don't think is bad for non-Americans. (How many Americans could name all the member states of the EU?).

The ones we missed were Connecticut, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Well, I didn't even know there _was_ a West Virginia - but the others, I just forgot.

We wondered if the ones we'd forgotten were clustered together. I'm pretty sure I know more about the coasts than the middle, for example. So I downloaded a map of the USA and coloured in the states according to whether we'd known them or not. Here it is:



Purple means that we both remembered it, blue means only Richard remembered it, green means only I remembered it and yellow states were the ones we both forgot.

Isn't that interesting? :)

Comments

[inquis.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, only managed 33, but that was on my own. Kicking myself for missing colorado and arizona. But I did definitely know about West Virginia - I have a friend from there. I don't think there were any states I'd not heard of before. I would have done better with more than 6 minutes, I think, given maybe fifteen or so, I would have got most of them. Maybe not Delaware or Maine or Maryland. I think the middle top was where I failed most, from about montana to missouri. Must learn...

[inquis.livejournal.com]

And with Will's suggestions the total is up to 39.