'Iran is somewhere over here, in East Africa': Most Americans can't identify potential war zone on map

New poll shows just 28 per cent can point out Iran on map. In Times Square, just one person managed to do so for The Independent

The majority of Americans seem to not know where Iran is, even as the US appears on the brink of war with the Middle Eastern country.

That’s according to a new poll out by Morning Consult, which found that just 28 per cent of registered voters were able to point to Iran on an unlabelled map of the Middle East, Europe, northern Africa and south-central Asia.

Just 23 per cent of respondents to the poll were able to correctly identify Iran on a map of the entire world, even as 69 per cent opined that the strike ordered by Donald Trump to kill Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani had made a war with Iran more likely.

The Independent set out to New York’s Times Square on a chilly afternoon to quiz people on the whereabouts of Iran, using a similar zoomed-in map of the region and a red marker.

Of nearly a dozen people who took a shot at the quiz on Wednesday, just one correctly identified the location of Iran — a young man who said he is from France.

Many of the others pointed to the general area surrounding Iran: One picked Afghanistan, another pointed to Turkmenistan, and yet another flagged Saudi Arabia. One woman pointed to Serbia as the location of Iran, and a man quickly pointed to France before walking away. A woman in a Queen Elsa — from Disney's Frozen, so she was technically Scandinavian — costume pointed to China (which was cut off on the map presented to her).

“Iran is somewhere over here in East Africa,” one man said, pointing to Egypt. Later when asked, he said he was following the crisis even if he couldn’t point to the country on a map: “I’ve been paying attention to it. I’ve been seeing what’s going on and I feel like Iran might be … I think that Trump did a kind of f****d up [thing].”

Asked if he thinks the US will go to war with Iran: “I think we’re already in that state.”

“Iran… Iran… That’s it?” one woman visiting New York with friends from Michigan said, while searching the map. The group ultimately marked Afghanistan, which borders Iran to the East.

Still, they’re also worried about the escalating tensions: “A lot. We get alerts on our phone. Yeah [we’re worried],” the woman said.

“It’s that one,” said another woman visiting from Minnesota, pointing to Serbia. “I’ve kind of tried to follow along with it. … I’m interested.”

One man, a veteran of the Navy who said he was deployed to the Middle East in the 1990s, suggested that Iran wasn’t actually on the map handed to him, before pointing to Turkmenistan as the location when reassured the document wasn’t a trick map.

The man, visiting from Connecticut with his sons — one of whom he said is in the military — said he has been “briefly” paying attention to the crisis. He continued to say he’s “for it”, meaning military conflict with Iran “if it comes down to it.”