North Korean youngsters sing and play accordions to entertain foreign visitors including United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, who visited Pyongyang, May 4, 1979. Visitors report music education in North Korea begins at an early age and is taken seriously by children and adults. (Photo by Peter Arnett/AP Photo)

Afghan children play on the remains of a Soviet-era armored personnel carrier on the outskirts of Jalalabad on February 15, 2016. Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan on February 15, 1989, after ten years of fighting against Mujahidin militiamen. (Photo by Noorullah Shirzada/AFP Photo)

Macaques huddle together for warmth at a hot spring in Nagano, Japan in the last decade of December 2023. Known as snow monkeys, the animals soak in the 40°C water every day during cold weather, spending their bathtime grooming, snoozing and playing on visitors’ camera tripods. (Photo by David Lazar/Animal News Agency)

Teenagers playing with mud started the Bloco da Lama in 1986 and it has since become an annual event in the city of Paraty, Brazil. Hundreds of people wrestle, coat each other in mud and throw it around to the sound of samba and reggaeton at a carnival beach party on February 18, 2023. Clothes are optional, but mud is not. (Photo by Fabio Teixeira/SIPA Press/Profimedia)

A boy plays in water from a broken fire hydrant in Rosemead, California on Saturday, May 10, 2025, seeking relief as spring heat breaks temperature records across the Southland. (Photo by Ringo Chiu/ZUMA Press Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A Fulani woman fixes her head scalf on the street of Dapchi, Yobe state, Nigeria on February 27, 2018. (Photo by Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters)

How sure are you of your geographical knowledge? Buzzfeed recently put Americans’ geographical knowledge to the test with a survey in which participants had to write in countries’ names on a blank European political map. Unfortunately, they didn’t fare too well, but some of their responses are hilarious (or hilariously mis-informed). But don’t be so quick to judge Americans – when Buzzfeed posted a similar survey testing Brits’ knowledge of the 50 United States, they also came up short. On the one hand, knowing a country’s states is different from knowing independent countries, but on the other, some U.S. states are larger than some European nations, and some U.S. states have larger economies than some European nations.