places

During my first years at school we had an outline map of the world on our classroom wall. I often wondered why someone had written the word 'and' in the bottom right corner near Australia. Years later I realised that this was New Zealand.

Mike B. London

I used to believe that all countries could only be countries if they were islands.i live in England, so grew up thinking that.so when i saw a map and things i didn't understand how somewhere could be a country if there were other places around it.So you can imagine me getting confused when i thought the whole of Europe was an entire country.

Katie

when I was about 10 I used to sit in Benhill Rec, a park in Sutton, surrey. In the distance I could see what I believed to be the eiffel tower. It wasn't till a few years later I realised it was a electricity pylon in Croydon

linda hurst

i used to believe that hawaii was located right south of florida. hey, they both have great weather!

ashley

When I was younger my grndad used to take me to villages outside canterbury on sundays after tea for an ice cream and a bottle of stella. He would tell me that we had left England and had gone to russia...I believed it...maybe I was drunk????

Steve Dobson

Until very recently (I am 13), I thought "Islam" was a country - apologies to any Muslims reading this. I guess I got it confused with Iran. For those that don't know, Islam is a religion.

Rachel

Until last year when I was 13 I never bothered to think out how a map worked, in relation to the round earth. I thought that if you went north from here (Canada) and you went past the Arctic you would be in Antarctica!

tina

I took a little boy to Luray Caverns, Virginia, an underground cave system. It was much cooler in the caverns than it was outside, the little boy was surprised that it wasn't hotter since we were closer to the earth's molten hot core underground.

Kristen

I don't remember much about when I was a kid. But the one thing I do remember is; that I could walk from my house to anywhere I had ever been in relatively a short time. I tried to prove this and got lost.

Justynn Tyme

While growing up in upstate New York, whenever my sister and I would be fighting or causing a ruckus, my mother would often say, "You kids are making me crazy! You're going to drive me to Poughkeepsie!" (Referring to a large Mental Hospital that used to be in that city.) Not knowing anything about the hospital, I used to think that Poughkeepsie was a city over-run with insane mommies that had been dropped off in the streets by their children. I still laugh when I get this image in my head.

EricS

As kids, when we used to ask ourdad where we would be going on our summer holidays, he would say "Ourgate" We believed that "Ourgate" was a place, in fact it was our garden gate - meaning we wern't having a holiday at all!

Anon

when i was about 4 or 5 i ALWAYS thought that the world was just my little town callled stone. i believed this for years untill i learnt otherwise.

Gummie

I used to think that in every country there was an exact copy of you but they spoke another language…… I used to think that my copy person would get washed up on a beach and id be able to talk to her ;)

moi

My dad used to tell me that there was always, (come rain or shine) a loan piper standing at Scotch Corner. And he'd played the pipes to tell you you'd got as far as Scotland. And this was true because my dad said so!

Suzie

When I was about 6 I used to believe that, when the berlin wall came down, that there was a wall seperating west virginia from (east) virginia because they had been in a civil war.

serena

When I was quite young I got really interested in studying my dad's Atlas. I thought that the British Isles were Australia & New Zeland because they were the shape of a kangaroo and a koala bear.

Claire

I believed for a long time that the world was the shape of Great Britain and that all the other places I'd heard about were somewhere in Great Britain. I blame the BBC weather map for this :o)

Claire UK