Amy asked a great question on behalf of her ninth grade geography students, "How does Iraq compare in area and population to a U.S. state?" With a population of approximately 27 million, Iraq is the 44th most populous country in the world. Iraq is thus significantly smaller than our most populous state of California (36 million) but larger than our second most populous state of Texas (23 million).
With an area of 437,072 square kilometers, Iraq would be ranked between state number two (Texas - 696,621km2) and three (California - 423,970km2) in area. Iraq is roughly twice the size of Idaho.
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Until each state develops a k-12 geography curriculum we have no hope of solving this problem. In fact the very absence of this curriculum simply tells the next generation that Geography is unimportant. Yet America is more involved in the world community than any other country and and needs this knowledge more than than any nation. It used to be said ‘know thine enemy’, but today it is ‘know thy competition’. Regretably our competition knows us far better than we know them. They all study Geography k-12 and so should we!