Is it normal for Americans to be able to name all 50 states of the US if asked?

26 comments

1. 5 minutes? It’d take the vast majority about 50 seconds.

   Very well

2. If you gave me a map I could.

   (An empty map)

3. Pretty easily

4. Yes

5. Fairly well. A lot of us learned songs with all the states’ names in them.

   Here’s the one I learned in the 90s, “The 50 states in Rhyme”: https://youtu.be/uUFeVKeKRQc?si=cJGanXL3Gl9ohShu

6. When I was in 2nd grade one of the other teachers taught her students all 50 in song form and I guarantee anyone from her class even 30 years later could quickly recite that song.

7. Yes, we’re grilled on that. The only thing is I don’t always remember the capital cities correctly tbh. 

8. We know it pretty well. I remember back in 5th grade (10 years old) memorizing in alphabetical order all states and capitols. 

   Check out this fun little clip: [Wakko’s America](https://youtu.be/bx6c_EefZAQ?)

9. This is something most kids learn when they’re in grade school. In alphabetical order, using a song. People here know what one of those songs is lol

   Whether you retain it as an adult is the question.

10. Yes. And in alphabetical order. There’s a song in school “Fifty Nifty United States” that we had to memorize. It’s forever imprinted on my brain.

    https://youtu.be/WhDrGnjacvA?feature=shared

11. I could pull off 48 or 49, pretty sure I’d lose track of one or two though.

    [Relevant](https://youtu.be/svy8zw-2XRM?si=GDZThdXYGab5xhTa)

12. Yeah. Pretty standard elementary school curriculum. You learn all the
    states and their capitals.

13. Short answer, yeah, that’s a pretty common to be able to do, especially if you have 5 minutes to think about it.

    Even if you put the average person on the spot and confronted them on the street demanding they list all 50 states, and they forget to list a couple, like let’s say Maryland and Oklahoma, they would still know Maryland and Oklahoma were states, they just forgot to list them.

    I would assume someone that flat didn’t know what Maryland and Oklahoma *are* has some kind of cognitive issue.

14. Yes, in alphabetical order too. There’s a song we were taught in 5th grade

15. I know I could, and most Americans could with a map.

    Just listing them off the top of your head though it’s easy to miss a few so I think most Americans could rattle off like 45 or so and then struggle to know which ones they missed without writing it down or looking at a map.

16. Depends on the American

17. Al-a-bama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas…

18. i got 40 in 5 minutes. Too many small states out east.

19. I learned a song about it.

20. I think most people are gonna drop one or two random ones (probably one of the plains states or smaller NE states) if trying to list all 50 from memory, but they would just need a small of prompting to register them (e.g., blank map with no lines would be enough).

21. Some can, some can’t.

    Personally, I can name all 50 plus their capitals.

22. There’s fifty nifty United States

23. There’s a song that they teach us that includes every state. I know people think that Americans don’t travel, but we are third largest continent and we are one country. I live in California, if I drive 8 north or South , I’ll either be near LA or Reno (and I live less than 30 mi from SF).
    I’m dating someone who does not live the USA & as an American it’s kind of difficult to grasp.
    I’ve lived on both sides of the country and there’s definitely different cultures and social expectations

24. I couldn’t rattle them off without having something to track what I’ve said already.

    I can’t easily fill in a map of the USA. I can do 2/3 of it, but once you get to rectangle land, it gets confusing. I can actually do a map of Europe far better than the USA.

    Don’t ask me to do the capitals in the US, because I can’t.

25. Just a note: older people like me didn’t have a song like most people are mentioning here. I can name all 50 most easily by looking at an unlabeled map, and if I don’t have a physical map, I would use one in my mind’s eye. I would have a really hard time doing it alphabetically, though.

26. >So I live in a country with just 16 states, so people here usually would be able to name all of them immediately.

    You’d be surprised how many Germans can’t name all the Bundesländer. I’d probably forget 1 or 2.