Looked at a map of Eastern Europe. My geographic literacy of it is comparable to my geographic literacy of Africa. Outside of big pieces I have no idea where anything is or what shape. Thereās apparently a āNorth Macedoniaā now. And Slovenia and Slovakia are not neighbors.
Conversation
Ukraine looks bigger than Germany. And Eastern Europe minus Russia is still bigger than Western it looks like (eyeballing it)
5
9
If Alexander was Macedonian, why do we sorta vaguely credit his conquests to Greece? Is there a big difference between the two? Now or historically?
9
1
7
Iāll cop to this. I grew up thinking of Eastern Europe as a minor strip of mountains buffering Western Europe and USSR.
Quote Tweet
Replying to @vgr
Big āArea man discovers Europeā energy :)
6
17
Itās actually worse. My main mental model of Eastern Europe is Syldavia vs Borduria from Tintin, Szplug!
Area Man discovers Eastern Europe is not like in Tintin comics.
1
15
At least this effect Iāve trained myself out of. In grad school I lived in a vegan coop where the common bathroom had a Peter projection (true area) world map on the wall across from the toilet. Developed intuitions of true proportions. Mercator should just be retired.
1
16
My most extreme geo-illiteracy is probably the interior of China. Shanghai in south, Beijing in north, Tibet on border with India. Thatās all I can tell you. The latinized place names are the second most impossible to learn, after Polish names.
6
8
Replying to
You guys know there are 23 letters in the Latin alphabet besides W, Z, and Y, right? š¤£
Replying to
we also decided to add some more, like Å and Å and a whole bunch of other fun ones!
but not vowels, vowels are verboten
1



