Only 36% Of Americans Can Find North Korea On A Map

North Korea heightened tensions with both its neighbours and the United States by conducting yet another missile test on Sunday. This time, Pyongyang claimed its test was successful and that the missile is capable of carrying a large-size nuclear warhead. Despite the plethora of missile tests and the constant sabre-rattling between North Korea and the U.S., very few Americans are able to identify the secretive country on an unlabeled map. A new experiment conducted by Morning Consult at the request of The New York Times found that only 36 percent of U.S. adults could correctly point out North Korea on an unlabeled map of Asia.

The research shows that quite a large number of Americans still possess a poor level of geographic knowledge. That's nothing new with a 2006 survey finding that six in 10 young adults failed to find Iraq on a map of the Middle East. Furthermore, 75 percent of them couldn't find Iran or Israel. This time, substantial numbers of the 1,476 U.S. adults surveyed guessed Afghanistan, India, Iran, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam as the location of North Korea. More men (45 percent) were correct than women (27 percent) while Republicans were more likely to find North Korea on the map than Democrats. Interestingly, those who could correctly identify North Korea favored diplomatic and non-military strategies to resolve the current crisis while those who could not find it were more in favor of military action.