Many Europeans have little concept of the location of states and cities in the U.S. as I've seen. They generally know a few. The comparison I would give is to treat Europe's countries as states given the size of the U.S. and its states. I am repeatedly asked by friends from Europe (and other places) if PA is near such and such state. If we switched the titles to countries I guess I could sit and point my finger at those ignorant Europeans for not knowing where Indiana is... And no, no one is being that harsh, just using the statement for comparison.
Though this topic usually degrades to something along those lines.
BTW I didn't just make up what I said above, with the recent meetup in Virginia several friends, including mods, kept asking similar questions in regards to various users and their proximity to me. One of those silly Europeans thought me and nekokami were next door to one another... lol
-MJ