1/5英国人称非洲从不下雨

　　The UK's Daily Telegraph reported on September 24 that a poll indicates that geographical misconceptions and ignorance of overseas climate are widespread among adults in the UK and nearly one fifth of British people think it "never" rains in Africa。

　　In a poll conducted by online travel agency Sunshine.co.uk, nearly half of UK residents 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。

　　More than 70 percent of respondents incorrectly stated it was "always hot" in the Sahara Desert – in fact temperatures at night often drop below freezing – and 17 percent said there were no volcanoes on the Canary Islands。

　　"Having carried out previous research into the misconceptions of people in the UK, we were keen to look into how knowledgeable people were of climates in other countries around the world," said Chris Brown, co-founder of Sunshine.co.uk。

　　In a previous survey in April, 54 percent of British people thought Timbuktu was an imaginary place, almost one in ten believed Kazakhstan did not exist, and more than a third claimed that Atlantis could be visited on a holiday to Greece。

　　In light of the new findings, Brown urged people to "do a bit of research" before venturing abroad。

　　据英国《每日电讯报》24日报道，最新一项调查表明，英国人普遍存着地理知识方面的误解以及海外气候知识的缺陷。有近1/5的英国人认为，非洲“从不下雨”。

　　英国在线旅行社Sunshine最近进行了一项调查问卷，结果显示，尽管法国的阿尔卑斯山每年冬天都吸引成百上千万的滑雪爱好者前去滑雪，可是几乎一半的英国人声称法国全境“很少下雪”。另外，还有1/8的人认为，(大部分地区常年被冰雪覆盖的)格陵兰岛上有雨林。

　　超过70%的受访者错误的认为在撒哈拉沙漠总是高温，而事实上，撒哈拉的夜间温度经常低于冰点。还有17%的人表示加那利群岛上没有火山。

　　Sunshine的创始人之一克里斯•布朗说：“以前我们曾经做过关于英国人知识缺陷的调查，但是这次我们热衷于调查英国的‘有识之士’是不是在世界其他国家的地理知识上也存在认知缺陷。”

　　今年4月进行的另一项调查还发现，54%的英国人认为廷巴克图

　　是个虚构的地方，大约1/10的英国人认为哈萨克斯坦这个国家并不存在，还有超过三分之一的英国人认为希腊的亚特兰蒂斯在假期也对外开放。

　　难怪在新的研究出来之后，布朗希望国人在出国旅行前，最好先“做一番研究工作”。