I’ve seen multiple videos equivalent of Americans pointing where (country) is on the map, and there was an instance where the host asked the woman where the continent Africa is located (points to Asia) like WTF? That’s not even close at all.
I know there’s bias towards those types of videos since there are accusations of the host “handpicking” select strangers framing them as if they are representative of the US. But the truth is that their education system isn’t good as it lacks funding.
When you put it into perspective: how many Europeans can correctly locate & name countries adjacent to them within their own continent and globally? Is the education system within the EU that good or effective at teaching kids that subject?
Geography (the topic of this thread) isn’t primarily about people, it’s about land.
Plus, even if you did sort by population, there’d be states like California, Texas, Florida and New York that have a higher population and a larger economy than some European countries.
The point remaining that if you see the entire US as a monolith, then you’re really not as good at geography as you think. Certainly not good enough to be impressive.