My best dumb American moment happened about 10 years ago. I met a guy from Canberra. I had to ask him where that was because I had never heard of it. He then says “It’s the capital of Australia, mate.”
For some reason the belief that Sydney is the capital is really strong in the UK too. Most people likely know it's Canberra or would just say they don't know, but I swear I was told it was Sydney by someone as a kid too.
Haters gonna hate. I grew up in and around the Canberra region, and have since moved (ironically to Newcastle). I miss Canberra all the time, particularly how safe I felt no matter where I lived, when the so called dodgier suburbs.
It’s also one of the few places in Australia with a non-blast-furnace climate. I’m not a fan of the heat so Canberra or Tasmania would be my choices in Australia.
Yep but living here has never felt like home. It has really interesting buildings but other than not a lot to keep it lively. Floriade (starts in two weeks for a month) is probably the biggest thing to happen annually and it is lovely to look at and it attracts tourists. It unfortunately doesn’t have a coastline attached to it (Jervis Bay is hours away) and I think that this was a mistake in planning the location of the city. Driving is really the most time efficient way to get around and luckily it’s less than 45 minutes to get anywhere in the city.
Well, it's planned like Milton Keynes, and I think a lot of it dates from post WW2 boom, so similar vintage and similar planning philosophy. Lots of green space, low density, cycleways, sort of car centric but not really.
A lot of people think the capital of Brazil is Rio de Janeiro, but it isn't (it's Brasilia). Marrakech is not the capital of Morocco (Rabat), and Istanbul is not the capital of Turkey (Ankara). Johannesburg is not the capital of South Africa (there are 3 other cities). New York is definitely not the US capital.
It's a very common phenomenon, people naturally expect the obviously biggest and wealthiest city in the region to be the capital. And indeed, these capitals were typically chosen precisely in opposition to the "natural" economic and cultural forces of the biggest city - to balance out their interests with the interest of the region as a whole, or to wrangle control from established powers.
Some of the "now famous" capitals too, have similar origins: Tokyo and Madrid were effectively built to be "the new capital", as it was Washington DC. I'm sure there are many more examples.
As far as obvious examples a foreigner might know, it's Phoenix, Denver, Atlanta, Honolulu, Indianapolis, Boston, Oklahoma City, Nashville, and Salt Lake City. There are 17 states where the capital is the largest city, but like Providence, Charleston (WV), Boise, and Cheyenne aren't exactly cultural powerhouses.
I think Brazil is similar in that sense, most people assume the capital is Rio de Janeiro but its actually Brasilia which i dont know a single thing about.
Some people just make things unnecessarily difficult. My country’s seat of power isn’t in the capital. Our ministry is in The Hague, yet our capital is Amsterdam.
And the province Amsterdam is in, does a similar trick making Haarlem the province capital instead of Amsterdam just being both.
The Netherlands is interesting in the sense that most educated people probably don't even know that Amsterdam is the capital in name only. You learn it's the capital and largest city, while the Hague is obviously the center of international law. But the fact that Amsterdam isn't the seat of government or foreign embassies is genuinely probably shocking to most people outside of the Netherlands.
Folks are probably more familiar with the centers of culture and population than centers of politics. I imagine there's more than a few folks out there who think that Seattle and NYC are capitals. In England it's a bit more exaggerated as there's bascially London and not-London (I suppose the rest of the UK too).
Canberra's a relatively small town, half the population of San Francisco even.
Not knowing about Canberra when you’re not from Australia is fine. You only become a dumb American when you argue with me, a Canberran, about what the capital of Australia is, which has happened to me a few times.
I don't think Washington DC would suffer from this at all.
The US government is very often referred to as "Washington" in news, and American news outlets have extremely wide reach.
Ottawa, on the other hand IS obscure, and only the capital because the significant cities would have been too easy for America to take in an olden days war.
Fun fact - when Mark Carney, the former governor of the Reserve Bank of Canada moved to London UK to become the governor of the Bank of England, he got a £250k p.a. housing allowance so that him and his family could match the same standard of housing they had in Ottawa. I saw him one day on the street in South Hampstead (a nice area) walking with his son - not sure if he lived there though.
Nah as an American I'd say Washington State suffers because of the existence of DC lol. Everyone in the US and maybe some outside have heard of Seattle but if you say you're from Washington anywhere outside the US I'm almost certain people will think you're referring to the Capital and not the state. Unless you're from Seattle, 9x outta 10 you've gotta specify Washington State
From your lesson I have now learned… 41 year old American here. 🙏
Seriously though I have to zoom in way too much on Australia on Google Maps before it lists Canberra as a city. Newcastle appears when zoomed out long before it.
My dumb American moment was about my own country. As a kid I was a geography whiz. I knew the location of every state and country, their capitals and all the major (and many minor) cities. Quite confident in my knowledge.
I was adamant that Hilo is the capital of Hawai’i. I am absolutely certain that I had a board game, maybe a puzzle, indicating Hilo as the capital. To this day I am somewhat ambivalent saying Honolulu is the Hawaiian capital because it’s so deeply ingrained in my early memory that it’s Hilo.
No such problem with any other state, province or country. Although I’m never quite sure what the capital of the Netherlands is and I’m not certain the Dutch are, either. The legislative, supreme judicial and executive functions are spread out (like in South Africa) and don’t fit any traditional definitions of “capital city”. Half my Dutch friends say it’s Amsterdam and the other half say it’s Den Haag. The US embassy is in neither; it’s in Wassenaar.
I get it but I travel overseas a fair amount. When I say I’m from Ohio I get blank stares most of the time. They usually know New York, Boston, LA, San Francisco and maybe Chicago and a town or two in Florida. That’s it.
I do expect that most people in western countries could recognise any US state as a US state. It's a country with over 300 million people, their states are basically the size of European countries.
US cultural export is just that strong. And don't pretend your news isn't plastered with US political coverage.
It's one of the better perks of living in Las Vegas and traveling abroad, everyone has heard of it. That is followed by the comment they didn't realize people actually live there.
That's kinda fair. People generally recognise cities more than states or provinces. Like I don't blame people from other countries for not necessarily knowing where Queensland, New Brunswick, or Hesse are.
I’m from Texas, Houston to be exact. Everyone outside the US knows Texas and they also all know Houston, but like most Americans, they think it’s a western city with horses, cattle, and cactus. It’s not…
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u/NeighborhoodOk9630 Aug 31 '24
My best dumb American moment happened about 10 years ago. I met a guy from Canberra. I had to ask him where that was because I had never heard of it. He then says “It’s the capital of Australia, mate.”