Artistic License Geography: Difference between revisions
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{{examples}}
== General ==
* The idea that the Great Wall of China is visible from space is incorrect, even at the closest point that could be considered space. The variations for being visible from the space shuttle or the moon are even more so; from the moon, only massive cloud systems, continents, and the oceans are distinguishable with the naked eye. If you ever want to try, consider trying to pick out the highway systems of [[Russia]] in the same view, as they are wider and longer- but it's ''still'' too small.
== Anime and Manga ==
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** There are other issues, too, such as there being "Stockton State Prison" and a DOJ facility in the series. Neither exist in real life.
* In an episode of [[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia]] Dee describes running down Spring Garden street, through fairmount park in order to get to Paddy's Pub which is canonically located on South Street. Feel free to look at a map of Philadelphia and try to figure out how that works?
* One of the first instances on TV likely occurred on ''[[I Love Lucy]]''. Lucy thinks that Ricky is homesick and decides to make over the house to look like "home." Ricky is Cuban, but she makes the house over to look more like Mexico (complete with sombrero-and-poncho stereotypes a la Speedy Gonzales). They both speak Spanish and are in the same general area, so, bless her heart, she was ''close,'' but then comes out and sings a song dressed as Carmen Miranda, who was a Portuguese-speaking Brazilian. Wrong continent, wrong language, wrong ''hemisphere.''
** Lucy and Ricky's address for the entire series is 623 E. 68th Street. In real life, that would be somewhere in the East River. (Although this is likely intentional. Many shows use [[555|deliberately fake addresses and phone numbers]] so the real places aren't constantly hassled by fans and pranksters.)
* An important plot point in Season 4 of ''[[24|Twenty Four]]'' occurs near [[The Mountains of Illinois|the mountains of Iowa]]. Take a good look at this [[media:iowa-state-map.gif|topographic map]] of Iowa. See any mountains? The highest point in the state is a little under 1,700 feet above sea level.
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* ''[[Happy Days]]'' seems to take place in a Milwaukee where mountains and palm trees populate the landscape (especially in the opening credits), along with California housing styles which never went near Wisconsin.
* [[Fox News Channel]] broadcast a map of the Middle East with [https://web.archive.org/web/20120329224149/http://mediamatters.org/blog/200907270040 Iraq labelled as Egypt].
** They also placed Sydney, Australia on the north coast of Australia during their recent{{when}} Tsunami coverage.
*** CNN also had a blunder covering the same story (which ''[[The Daily Show]]'' called them out on) where they called the Galapagos Islands "Hawaii".
* In Season 1 of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', Sylar visited a man in Virginia Beach, VA. A quick peek outside the door revealed rocky hills, scrub, and lots of dust. Viewers in coastal Virginia rolled their eyes.
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* ''[[QI]]''. One example being a question about the smallest English county - expected "wrong" answer being Rutland, with the "correct" answer being the Isle of Wight, which apparently has a smaller area at the relevant tidemark. Unfortunately, in traditional terms the Isle of Wight isn't a county (it's part of Hampshire, and Rutland ''was'' the smallest traditional county), and in modern terms, both the reinstated Rutland and the IoW are unitary authorities - the smallest of which is Blackpool.
** The traditional counties are counties which used to exist but don't necessarily still exist or have their original boundaries. A unitary authority, while being for most purposes a county in all but name, is still considered for ceremonial purposes to be part of a county. Hence the entities known as Ceremonial Counties, which are the current officially existing counties, which have the ceremonial institutions of a county such as a Lord Lieutenant & which may govern all their own territory, or alternatively some or even all of their territory may be under the control of unitary authorities. In any case, QI was wrong because the City of London is a seperate Ceremonial County in its own right, not part of Greater London
* The [[Soap Opera]] ''[[The Young and The Restless]]'' recently{{when}} featured a storyline where a character faked his own death and escaped Wisconsin. Then he went to Ottawa. Then he went to Brazil. So his father followed him to Ottawa on a vengeance mission. Apparently, Ottawa is some harbour-front dive-down, inhabited by rednecks in cowboy shirts. In order to enter Ottawa, you have to parachute out of a clunker aeroplane. [[It Got Worse|And then]], another character follows the father to Ottawa. By chartering a boat. ''From Wisconsin''. While geographically possible, it still requires a detour through four
* In ''[[Friends]]'', Phoebe had a scientist boyfriend called David, who went to Minsk on a research trip. Minsk is stated to be in Russia several times, while it actually is the capital of Belarus. Belarus was the part of the Soviet Union to which Americans often referred as "Russia", but the Soviet Union was dissolved years before ''Friends'' even started.
** Still, the characters would have been adolescents to adults at the time the Soviet Union fell apart, with already formed speech habits when it came to the geography they'd learned in school.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* An [[Old World of Darkness
** In the World Of Darkness, Auckland is located in Australia - and Australia's capital is Sydney.
** Also in the World Of Darkness, New Orleans apparently has a subway system. On the gulf coast. Below sea level.
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