Until I was about 9 or 10, I truly believed Mount Rushmore was a natural phenomenon. Nobody told me it was. I just assumed the tourist attraction was a really big coincidence somehow involving the process of "erosion." (My dad was a geologist.) At some point in elementary school my teacher set me straight, but only after a lengthy and highly emotional discussion between us, during which I INSISTED in front of all the other kids that those presidential faces had randomly appeared over thousands of years of wind and rain pounding against the mountainside. I slinked home in humiliation afterwards. And I've never liked science since.

Ellen

I was born in New York. We were one of the few Anglo families in our neighborhood; most of our neighbors were from Puerto Rico. We left and moved to the Midwest when I was 4. Until I was in my teens, I kept my misunderstanding of what my parents had told me about the location of Puerto Rico; I thought it was right off the coast of New York City.

Confused Guy.

I used to believe all countries besides the USA were 3rd world countries. When I was 10 years old I'd talk to people from Britain and Canada online and wonder how they had access to the internet.

Tegan

The world was really much smaller than I was being led to believe. In fact my suspicion was that my dad would drive us to my Grandad's house by the most circuitous route possible to give me the impression that it was much further away than it really was. I believed that Britain was probably only about 20 square miles. Worst of all I believed that my dad had told everyone else what he was up to. All just to make me suffer on long boring car journeys - it was so cruel. I was an only child.

Anon

I used to believe that Niagara Falls was in Nevada. It made perfect sense -- after all, since lots of people went to Las Vegas to get married and Niagara Falls was a big honeymoon spot it stood to reason they were nearby. I think I was confusing NF with the Hoover Dam. Geography was never my strong suit.

Heather

When i was little i used to belive there were only two countries The USA and China and there was only water everywhere else.

Misinformed

I used to believe that the United States covered almost the entire planet.

RAB

The maps where they put all of the continents out flat really threw me off. I thought that all of the continents [1/4 of the globe] were on one side and the other side was all ocean [3/4 of the globe]. That's where all the desert islands were, and that's why is was so hard to get to china

Alandra

I used to believe until a couple of months ago that Bulgaria was a fictional country, because that was where the horrible king and queen lived in the film 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang'.

Sparkle Kitty

After amny years of hearing you can dig a whole to China. I thought that all countries were on top of each other.
China, New Zealand, Australia, America and so on and that the planes flew straight up. And of course I thought it was all flat......

Bridget Collins

When I was 9 we moved from Utah to California. I truly thought we were moving to a foreign country. Our first weekend there we went to San Francisco and saw all the "flower children" on the street corners and I knew for sure it was another country.

LaughNSing

k this is really bad cos i believed this until like a week ago - I've always thought that the Falkland Islands were in england. And this is REALLY stupid of me cos a.Im from scotland which is pretty near england b. Theres the word ISLAND in it, which i obviously forgot and c. I'm 17. Enough said.

u don't have 2 tell me, i know im a dumbass!

When I was young growing up in America I watched the news with my parents a lot. One day I hered the reporter saing the they are having problems "overseas" and thought that there must have been a new 51st state called "overseas". A week after that I got a US map and counted fifty, i was extremely upset that the map makers riped me off and told my parents... yea. Now i can name every contry in the world and most of there capitals :)

patrick - new jersey, america

When I was young I thought that 'going to Manchester' meant going to the doctors, because the doctor was a man who put his stethoscope on your chest.

Dave, Lancashire

when i was little, i used to think that the Gulf Coast was the Golf coast and people plaed lots of golf when they went there

mr nobody

My grandmother lived in Boise, Idaho. We visited her one summer and while there, we rode innertubes on the Payette River. I lost one of my shoes in the river and my dad remarked it was "on its way to China". From this, I believed the Payette River went through China and China and Idaho were neighbors! I was about 5 at the time.

Anon

when i was about 5, I lived in Brazil and my family visited Iguazu Falls. my mom explained to me that down there (bottom of waterfall or something) was Paraguay, and over there (across the river or something) was Argentina, and where we are standing is Brazil. Somehow I concluded this means that Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil were parallel plains/landscapes of separate altitudes. The three countries were stacked like floors in a building, overlapping. So most of Paraguay was uderground. So when someone said "Paraguay is below Brazil", meaning south, I would think "oh yeah, I've been there, I know what's going on".

trevor

I usd to think that Plymouth, where I lived as a child, was bigger than London. I also thought that England was bigger than Britain. England was male and Britain was female, so it made sense, since men are generally taller than women.

Lady M

When I was about 7, I was told we were moving to Hawaii. I envisioned us living in grass huts with one room, no roads and worst of all ~gasp~ no TV! I was terribly upset. I still live here today...

Polly

When I was about four or five I thought that the world was divided in two from north to south, and that everything on the 'other side' has an exact copy of everything on 'this side', including myself. I was actually looking forward to growing up so I could travel to the other side and meet my 'clone', see what she's been up to.

Anon