For those armchair travellers who delight in sneering at the average American's appalling knowledge of basic geography: sit up and take notice. An online quiz set by campaigners to promote greater awareness of the world outside our borders shows Britons and Americans closely matched.
The 2006 Geography Cup, a collaboration between a geography campaigner from Atlanta and a teacher from Oxfordshire, allows contestants two minutes to place 10 randomly selected countries on an interactive map, and answer three topical questions.
They might be asked to locate the country most devastated by the 2004 tsunami, or most affected by the spread of HIV-Aids. So far more than 18,000 people have tried their luck.
The quiz runs until the end of the month.
"It really is neck and neck," said Daniel Raven-Ellison, who teaches geography at a school in Woodcote, south Oxfordshire. "A lot of Brits take the mick out of Americans for not having knowledge about geography, but this might take people aback."
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