Facebook applications are intended to entertain and enhance an average user’s page. However, one application is challenging Americans’ knowledge – or lack thereof – of world geography.

The “Traveler IQ Challenge” is a game where users are tested on their knowledge of world geography. Users are provided with a map and a city or monument. The player then must place a flag in the area where they think the named location is. The score is based on how close the guess was to the actual position of the city.

With more than 65,000 people participating, the United States has the most Facebook users of any nation. However, the U.S. is ranked 117th of 193 countries in terms of accuracy and knowledge of other nations.

In the application, the U.S. currently trails New Zealand, Norway, Scotland, Ireland, Sweden and France, among many other countries.

Ethnocentrism, explains Sarah A. Blue of the Department of Geography, is the reason many Americans opt not to learn about other nations.

“The U.S. being a political and economical superpower, we don’t need to look beyond our borders,” Blue said. “Because the U.S. is so big, we tend to travel within the country.”

Blue said many Americans find learning geography unappealing.

“It’s just one of the subjects that people find boring,” Blue said.

In some cases, students are not given the opportunity to learn geography in school. Gina Colonna, a sophomore elementary education major, knows this from experience.

“I just don’t think schools emphasize geography enough,” Colonna said. “I know from my own experience that I was never taught geography in elementary school or high school. I don’t even think our high school had a geography class.”

Tyler Swanson, a senior marketing major, believes many Americans just don’t care enough about the rest of the world to learn about it.

“I think a lot of it has to do with how closed-minded and egocentric the general American public is,” Swanson said. “As a whole, we don’t care about what is going on in other parts of the world, as long as it doesn’t affect us, or our gas prices, directly.”

The 2006 National Geographic-Roper Survey of Geographic Literacy published statistics regarding U.S. citizens ages 18 to 24. According to the report, half of Americans cannot locate New York on a map.

The report also states only 37 percent of Americans could find Iraq on a map, despite American troops having been stationed there since 2003. Furthermore, 20 percent of young Americans believe Sudan is in Asia.

However, Sudan is the largest country in Africa.