Almost half of Britons responding to a travel survey claimed it “rarely snows” anywhere in France, despite the French Alps attracting millions of skiers each winter, while one in eight people believed rainforests are found in Greenland.
The poll of 1,726 people, conducted by Sunshine.co.uk, an online travel agent, exposed a number of other common geographical misconceptions and ignorance about overseas climates.
More than 70 per cent of respondents incorrectly stated it was “always hot” in the Sahara Desert – in fact temperatures at night often drop below freezing – and 17 per cent said there were no volcanoes on the Canary Islands.
When asked to specify the characteristics of a monsoon season, one in 10 people said it was “a time when birds migrate south for winter,” while 68 per cent thought there has never been a tornado in Britain.
A previous survey, carried out in April, revealed that 54 per cent of Britons thought Timbuktu was an imaginary place, and almost one in ten believed Kazakhstan did not exist.
More than a third claimed that Atlantis could be visited on a holiday to Greece.
Source: http://news.google.com
