Shocking: New Zealand and Australia are out of their place on the map

reply to post by LastStandingMan


I think I pinned the explanation for this in the first Australia out of place thread.

What it stems from is the fact that our first experience with Australia is elementary school worksheets that have very little detail and only portray the major continents. Basically they leave out the island nations between Autralia and Asia (Indonesia ect).

That is why it seems like a lot of blue. Becuase you worked worksheets that only had the continents and weren't detailed.

Originally posted by GogoVicMorrow
reply to post by LastStandingMan

 

I think I pinned the explanation for this in the first Australia out of place thread.

What it stems from is the fact that our first experience with Australia is elementary school worksheets that have very little detail and only portray the major continents. Basically they leave out the island nations between Autralia and Asia (Indonesia ect).

That is why it seems like a lot of blue. Becuase you worked worksheets that only had the continents and weren't detailed.

You can , of course , supply us with one of these " worksheets " ?
My memory of Australia being out of place comes from Atlas's and not worksheets.

To me your explanation is far from being " pinned" , but is in fact , just another opinion.

reply to post by tpg47


...well, I guess I could look through the attic for one of my 15 year old elementary school worksheets, but I don't really want to since most everyone should know what I am saying.
Can you supply me with this atlas?

My opinion is just as valid as yours, probably even more so since it's logical and gives a realistic possibility.

It's really funny to me that you put worksheets in quotations like I was making it up. You never had a worksheet in kindergartin or first or second grade that had the simple basic outlines of the continents when you were learning them in school? I say this because the very first time I visited one of these threads and looked at a detailed map I thought the same thing. I thought, man I remember Australia being way off by itself.. then I thought about it and realized that those worksheets from when I was a kid never really had the islands as they weren't considered a continent and so the absence of those details put Australia way off on its own.

Originally posted by tpg47


To me your explanation is far from being " pinned" , but is in fact , just another opinion.

edit on 9-1-2013 by tpg47 because: (no reason given)

My opinion, as a citizen of New Zealand is that this is a case of bad geography and the premise is ridiculous.
If you understand geology at all, you will understand why I say this.

This is my first post, so hopefully I post this correctly.I spent yesterday reading this thread, as it was intriguing me. This prompted me to ask around. I had 4 answers that it was on the NW of Australia. Mind you, these people are from all over, not just my local area. I was blown away as I remembered it being in the SE. One of these people went to the same school as me as well. I was very surprised. And another thing, I only received NW or SE responses, no other directions from everyone asked. Just wanted to throw that out there!

I'm from US and husband is from France. We both said NZ was northwest. There must have been a lot of bad maps distributed.

I don't think there have ever been any maps with New Zealand north west of Australia.

North-west of Australia is Indonesia, with Sumatra and Java. If there is such a misperception then IMO it is probably that people are remembering those islands in their right place, and thinking they are NZ - because NZ is a couple of islands close to Aus.....isn't it?

There are maps where things were moved around, eg this Australian classic

McArthur´s Universal Corrective Map

Perhaps it is possible such imagery could confuse memories.

reply to post by veubiah


lol - yes the Wizard of Christchurch had one of those he sold too - perhaps that is where people got the idea from - tourists buying these??

It's a little odd because I don't *remember* where NZ was on a map when I originally learned about it. My mom had a good friend who lived there. I do remember looking at maps to get an idea of where her friend lived in the world when I was small....... I know that now, currently, it is placed to the SE of Aus. Something tells me that's not where it was when I've viewed maps earlier in life.

This is weird.

I can assure you, the relationship of the New Zealand continent geology with that of the South Pacific Basin, Australian geology and Antarctic geology all says that we are exactly where we should be.

I've always remembered New Zealand being on the South East of Australia, but Australia was NOT that close to New Guinea. I remember that Australia is it's own little island, remote and a stretch to get to from anywhere. I, too, remember coloring in world maps in middle/high school. I remember clear thoughts that I had regarding how isolated that land mass seemed. I would have bet my bank account on it.

For those who believe they knew that New Zealand was on the North West side, I wonder what you all have in common. What decided you would all have the same experience and now exist in a world where a fact simply isn't true anymore?

Edit: Previous poster has a point. Here is a map of continents one might get as a child. Australia looks so lonely.

www.wpclipart.com...

reply to post by Mia2115


That clip art is what I remember. I also remember NW is where NZ was. lol.

reply to post by skorpius


That's just bad geography.
Where's the UK?

Why is it that all the Kiwi's call us Aussies "Westies"?--because they consider Australia the west island of NZ...

Just because there are a lot of Kiwi's moved to the NorthWest for work does not mean the whole shakey islands moved with them.

Going to tell the bros about this thread when I go to the pub later, they'll get a good laugh

I'm so glad I joined this site recently to be able to reply to this topic... Anyone suggesting that NZ was ever offshore to the west of Australia is delusional... Also, mentioning that Queensland never had a spike at the top is just plain dumb...
I know this site is for people who are believers in some pretty outrageous things but atleast when someone wants to discuss these outragious things they admit that it's their belief and nothing more...

FYI - Before NZ broke away from Australia it was actually connected to Antarctica!!!

These claims would be like me saying "wasn't Hawaii just offshore from New York" or "When did florida become a peninsular"

Deny Ignorance!!!!

Ok didnt have to spend that long with Google:

In many ways, it shouldn't come as a shock, but it still does: Last year, when the National Geographic Society surveyed 18- to 24-year-old Americans to find out what they knew about the world, only 37 percent could find Iraq on a map, despite the fact that U.S. troops have been in that country since 2003. (Places closer to
home didn't fare much better: 50 percent couldn't locate New York, the country's third largest state.)

And it wasn't just geography that highlighted their lack of what Ed School alum Bill Jaeger, Ed.M.'03, calls "planet awareness": More than 70 percent thought English was the most spoken native language in the world (it's Mandarin Chinese) and only 10 percent communicated regularly with anyone outside the United States. (With only 22 percent having a passport, most didn't travel abroad, either.)

www.gse.harvard.edu...

To the "Timeshifters": you are normal, completely normal. Now admit your just not as good at geography as you thought--even if you were better than everyone else at your respective places of education. You can now have a nice day.

reply to post by cartenz

Now admit your just not as good at geography as you thought

Right after you admit that YOU'RE not as good at English as you thought. Hah couldn't resist, just kidding.

I just created an account after reading this topic. A lot of things on here seem to be making certain aspects of my life more... appreciable.

However, I MUST MUST MUST push, until I read this post, I am in my mid 20's I work in IT, I am relatively smart... I ALWAYS remember NZ being to the northwest of australia. I studied geography in school, I have never once noticed it being on the southwest, not even in the last few years.

I really wish I could draw it to show you all how I remember it.

reply to post by hillit


blame it on the education system then.

the recent earthquakes may have shifted NZ a few centimeters....but not that much!