The Conversation (0)
Alex Daniel
Nov 16, 2023
A woman has asked people not to call her a “stupid American” after admitting she was baffled when she found out that Alaska is not, in fact, an island.
TikToker Sabriena Abrre said: “Everybody knows that Alaska is cold. But did I know that it was connected by land? No. I did not know that.”
She also hadn’t clocked the size of Alaska, which is the largest US state, saying she had thought Texas was bigger.
Part of the confusion is that Alaska is one of the US’s noncontiguous states, along with Hawaii. That means it is often shown separately on maps in a separate box, making it appear not to be part of the same land mass.
Abrre said: “The curriculum obviously needs some help. We need a good revision — an overhaul of the entire curriculum at this point.”
Her video has so far been viewed more than 819,000 times, with many viewers writing that they, as Americans, had made the same mistake.
Haley Hopkins wrote: “Oh. My. God. Not me JUST finding out Alaska is not an island NEAR Canada. I’m 33. I’m so embarrassed.”
However, others who appeared not to be American were a little less sympathetic.
One person said: “Sorry, the system isn't the main problem here. It's the lack of interest, there is USA and the rest of the world is not important.”
Another wrote: “Confused Canadian: Were y’all not shown a world map in geography class?”
Alaska is the northernmost point in the US, and borders British Columbia and Yukon in Canada to the east.
While it is the largest state in terms of area, it is the least densely populated, with a population of 732,000.
That means it has just 1.3 people per square mile. The comparatively tiny New York city, meanwhile, has 8.8m people, with 29,302 people per square mile.
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