What percentage of Americans could confidently name one state of India or one province of China? Our education system somewhat talks about Europe, but most of the world is basically ignored.
edited to add: That said, I get the GP's point about excessive self-flagellation, and agree that it's OK to cut people some slack for not having a super-precise grasp of the local geography in places they'll probably never go. When I see major cities that lie within just a few kilometers of US borders described as, e.g., "Toronto, Canada" instead of "Toronto, Ontario", though, I still wonder.
Most US states are culturally and historically insignificant. The comparison between European countries with thousand years of history to most of the US states is lacking.
There are more US states than European countries, which have an older history and an overall larger population.
I am writing this without any intention to take away from the important US states. I am just looking at the bottom half here.
The states aren't just provinces. It's not happenstance that they are constantly talked about.
Hell, it's in the bloody name of the country.
I think most people from the EU could also name provinces or states where conflict with the central government exists on a larger scale or where people are at odds with the central government. I assume quite a few people will know of Kashmir for example. Just as you are unlikely to know the names of states for for example Germany, except maybe Bavaria, but for Spain you will likely have heard of Catalonia. And you will likely also know about what actually happens there instead just iterating through remembered terms for regions.
Point is if you don't know any names, you don't know any context either.
So we can tell that a guy who hasn't heard of eigenvectors (name) doesn't know much about linear algebra (context).
A similar argument could maybe be made for voting preferences /political leanings of the different regions in the US to give a more practical example.
But yes that is rebutting my last comment. You dont necessarily learn the state names by learning the context.
Knowing similar things about the US tells you the area Texas covers is dryer than average even if you don’t know the name Texas.
I think most somewhat educated people could.