places

I was convinced that Indians had dug the Grand Canyon.

Tom Sackett

I was about 6 years old at the time the Berlin wall fell and Germany became reunited. We used to get those Weekly Reader newsletters in school, and the story about Germany being unified was accompanied by a story about a kid who found out that his hometown wasn't on a map and had it changed. For some reason, I thought these two things were the same story, and for at least three years I thought that Germany had been divided into East and West because someone had made a mistake on a map.

Those darn cartographers are messing with world politics again...

I ued to believe that Random - as in 'names were picked at random' - was a place. I thought there was one place where all competion entries went to be picked.

chris

When my dad would drive us around in the car, we would continuously yell out from the back seat "Where are we going? Where are we going?" My dad would say "Berserk". I was a teenager before I realized that "berserk" was a state of mind and not a destination.

Still Waiting to Get There....

I used to think Germany had a lot of germs...thats why they built a wall...to stop all the germs from comin' in.

GERMany

I used to believe lepers came from Ireland. Like leprechauns, only with less body parts.

Anon

Untill i got to high school I beleived that spain was a planet but people were allowed to live there, i never realised that was why i had failed every school science project up untill then.......such a shock when i found out spain was a country not a planet.

Sarah

I used to believe that it was Nelson Mandela on the top of Nelson's column in London (It's Horatio Nelson the famous admiral)

Jake

This is quite embarrassing because i believed it only up until the other day and i'm 22!! Me and my friend were discussing unusual and unique names and I said "it's surprising you don't hear more girls named Liberty" and she asked why and i said "Well, people are naming their kids after countries and places and Liberty just seems to be an obvious choice."

To cut a long story short, I thought the statue of Liberty in the US was just that: A statue of someone named Liberty (i thought she was the first ever presidents wife or something!)

Jay

I used to get a bunch of my friends to help me dig a hole in the sandbox deep enough to reach China on the other side of the world. We would never finish, so for the longest while I thought it was possible.

Nate

That if there was an Antarctica, there had to be and Arctica somewhere on the other end of the earth.

tammy

My sister told me that if it wasn't for the bridges, Manhatten Island would sink. This made sense to me considering the weight of all of those buildings.

Monica

When I was young I thought that 'going to Manchester' meant going to the doctors, because the doctor was a man who put his stethoscope on your chest.

Dave, Lancashire

when i was 9 i somehow got the idea that mexico was a city in spain.

my 4 year old sister would always say how she knew that mexico and spain were 2 different places and i would strongly disagree.

imagine the embarrassment when i was at a party for my soccer team and i told them, 'get this! my sister thinks that spain and mexico are 2 different places! she doesnt even kno that mexico is in spain!'

i got shown up by my lil sis. god i hate that.

kay

i used to believe alaska was an island because of the way they put it on our books

Anon

These beliefs aren't mine, but of my friends. They are TERRIBLE at geography. They believe that New England is in Europe. They believe that South Africa is just a general region and not a country. Worst of all, they think there are 52 states in the US. Whenever I tell them that there are only 50, they tell me that I forgot Alaska and Hawaii. Their lack of knowledge of the states became apparent when one of my friends made a project which involved "taking a bridge from Florida to California." For the uninitiated: they're on different ends of the country. He didn't do so well on that project.

Mr. Globetrotter

I always thought that Hawaii and Alaska were next to each other, just a little bit below, Texas because on Maps they always put them next to each other! I couldn't figure out how two states so close to each other could have such drastically different climates!

Carlee

As a child I was told that America was "below" Canada. I believed that If I looked down the sewers, I would see America

Emdee

that Uttoxeter was a huge and important place, cause all roads in Stafforshire point towards it

rosy

I used to belive that Switzerland was at the centre of the world, (because it had the highest moutains, of course!), that all the countries were packed around it, with England on the edge, which of course led to the Atlantic Ocean - the biggest ocean in the world!

Jon