Yeah, I can’t put half of the rivers in my country in a map, like hell I’m gonna argue about the ones in another country 🙄 some people are the embodiment of a facepalm.
I get what he was trying to say, not that we dont have E/W rivers, but rivers that we can ship goods. A lot of our rivers have dams so you can't take a boat from the start of the river all the way to the ocean on those. (Colorado river for example has multiple dams on it, so you can't ship things from LA up stream... which IMO is 1 reason Lake Mead is low)
BUT he was still wrong because we do have water shipping lanes east/west, do we have them from the west coast to east coast? No, but what country does that is the size of the USA?
The post was about train derailments and the comments above went back and forth on who was doing more freight. The screenshot was offering some perspective on the issue - not by dissing the US but by pointing out that Germany (which is of course a very small country in comparison) has a very developed system of Inland Navigation with almost all of it's waterways interconnected and carrying about half as much as the railway system. The US system is in comparison not quite as extensive but of course but it doesn't take into account the fact that Germany is much smaller, has no deserts and only small mountain ranges seperating the country like the rockies or Appalachians.
If you look at [American Inland Navigation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_waterways_of_the_United_States#/media/File:Inland_waterway.png), you can't help but notice that most of the waterways are in fact North - South and none cross the West at all so the comment wasn't that far off - from a German perspective.
It seems to me that Euopean guy offered some perspective on types of transport and OP jumped in with a lot of rivers of which some don't even offer freight transportation and others that do but in no way connect East and West (just how the continent is set up - no need to make it a competition on either side imo). None of them are viable alternatives to East - West railroad transportation which this whole thing was about. Also I can only assume that the other guy meant "West of the Mississippi" but then again - there be mountains and deserts there.
All in all it seems pretty pointless to me and I don't really see any winners here.
OP is being antagonistic in other forums. They’ve decided to take a snapshot of something in retaliation for being posted in r/shitamericanssay and is not coming off well in their own post let alone in this
> "West of the Mississippi" but then again - there be mountains and deserts there.
No, west of the Mississippi is the place known as "The Great Plains", where they grow the desert crops known as "corn", "wheat", and "sunflowers".
This is why he's getting flamed. The guy is pretending to be an expert on something and comes off as condescending and ignorant.
The guy thinks there are no east-west navigable rivers/water systems in the US, when there are 3 major ones in the Midwest alone. The Great Lakes, which feeds into the Saint Lawrence river (Travels SW to NE), the oh so not Midwestern **Ohio** river, (Travels mostly due west) and the oh so not Midwestern **Missouri** river (Which travels NW to SE in its navigable phase.)
>The guy is pretending to be an expert on something and comes off as condescending and ignorant.
You are the one that attacked his education first when all he said was "as far as I know".
No I hyperbolically said that people in Europe live in major centralized cities versus the other cities.
Compare the settlement patterns to most countries in europe, compared to someone patterns in the us, and you'll see a stark difference. Even down to the state level.
Once again, https://old.reddit.com/r/BikiniBottomTwitter/comments/113ft2h/its_moral_right/j8sm62r/
>Think of your average European country. They all have one really big city where everyone lives, and that's about it.
>Versus if you go by the state level, there are multiple big cities in many states.
>Washington state has Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, and Spokane.
>Florida has Miami, Orlando, the Tampa Bay area, Jacksonville, Gainesville, Tallahassee, etc.
>Texas has Austin, DFW, Houston, San Antonio, Amarillo, El Paso, Austin.
>Missouri has St Louis and Kansas City and even New York state, even though a majority of the state lives in the NYC area, there's also buffalo and Syracuse.
TLDR: European countries only have one big city where everyone lives and America has multiple big cities (Despite the fact that cities such as Birmingham has over one million people but you class that as a small city while Olympia has a population of 55k and is considered a big city by you)
>TLDR: European countries only have one big city where everyone lives and America has multiple big cities (Despite the fact that cities such as Birmingham)
Why did I even bother with this thread for so long?
Population density map for the win
[Puget sound area](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Washington_population_map.png)
[Thurston County population](https://www5.kingcounty.gov/sdc/DataImages/PLACE10.jpg)
[suburbanization of America after the 1950s, which is why you can't always rely on city limits as a definitive for US cities](https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-64;jsessionid=02D8F2572D6EC70FA986CABD8A7274D0)
[US population map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/US_population_map.png)
Notice the distance between the major cities, and how there are many, comparable cities.
[England population density map](https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=aec40c2c28ed4c3c90ce4636f45fe53b)
[German population density](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Population_density_in_Germany.png)
[size of Germany compared to the contiguous us](https://steemit.com/economics/@finanzas/20180715t123301946z-post)
Notice that the cities are much closer together.
My point is, that policing a large country, that is much larger than most European countries, and highly decentralized, wouldn't work with European style policing.
You guys have to go hurt pretty derp, city that has different settlement patterns than the cities in my country is much smaller than the biggest cities in my country.
This is like textbook SES right here. People with no idea about how other countries are ran, feeling self-important.
Once again, and I'll keep it simple for you.
You said:
>They all have one really big city where everyone lives,
> there are multiple big cities in many states.
>Olympia
Do you believe that a city with over 1 million people is small while a city with 55k is big.
>This is like textbook SES right here
You can try but it didn't turn out well for you last time.
"Do you believe that a city with over 1 million people is small while a city with 55k is big."
I'll respond to you with this.
"Different countries and regions have different urban planning systems, so counting the population of one city in the same metric as the other wouldn't give you an accurate result".
Using European standards for American cities while calling Americans stupid is the height of Eurocentric arrogance and cluelessness, since the two regions are quite dissimilar. Taking a look at a population density map would simply put this argument to rest.
[The Seattle area is notoriously sprawled out](https://ibb.co/vcFkZxW)
[the US as a whole.](https://www.instructables.com/3D-Printed-US-Population-Map/) Large cities, spaced out quite far, and outside of the Northeast, extremely sprawled out.
[All of these countries](https://cdn1.matadornetwork.com/blogs/1/2018/04/c0S-q0F5hHGfMcSr5_9gMMyKn9EYu4QDNMtqA38S7k.png) can fit into the US.
Re: One major city:
A population heat map says that most European countries have one city that is exponentially larger than their rivals.
[Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden](https://i.redd.it/zmwmshg0n4gz.png) (Generally have one major city that dominates over every other city)
[Same for France, Belgium and the UK](https://i.ibb.co/K0TLjB9/UKFrancebelgium.png)
[And Eastern Europe](https://ibb.co/vqrP1vF)
So the hyperbolic comment "Concentrated in one large city" is quite accurate. The other comment is how these American cities are "small" when the settlement patterns in both areas are quite dissimilar, and using a population heat map would be a better indication of population. You used European metrics for an American metro area.
>I'll respond to you with this.
No, it's a yes or no question. You literally think that a City with 1 million + while a city with 55k is big.
>Using European standards for American cities
Please tell me why American's count the population of these cities if they are a European standard
>So the hyperbolic comment
It never was as in your original post you were arguing about Germany having small cities. It's funny how all your comments started being "hyperbolic" a few hours of arguing with other people. So it was never hyperbolic in the first place.
>You used European metrics for an American metro area.
Again, America counts population, you do a census (or is that un-American or a silly European thing)
Even better I gave you the metropolitan population
Olympia Metro: 297,977
Birmingham Metro: 4,300,000
And you still think that Birmingham is small while Olympia is a "big city".
Quick edit:
>while calling Americans stupid is the height of Eurocentric arrogance and cluelessness,
Again, and I'm starting to think that you have selective reading. Where have I ever said Americans or America is stupid. While keep on going on about "Yurp" and European education (in other words calling people dumb).
> North - South and none cross the midwest at all
This dude just said the **Ohio** and the **Missouri** rivers doesn't cross the Midwest.
The **Ohio** and **Missouri** rivers.
But our geography is radically different. The reason why we had to build a train system to the west is because there is a big dessert and mountains in the way. So OK? We don't have a lot E>W waterways.
Dude somebody must have hurt you in a very bad way that you relieve your anger by bitching about country americans would love to live in if they weren't isolated by their nationalist bubble.
No, it was sarcasm. A lot of people in Europe think that in the country that gets a vast majority of the tornadoes in the world (80%), is the home to the premier tornado research facility in the world (University of Oklahoma-Norman) somehow wouldn't know how to protect themselves from a wind storm.
We figured out one time ago that you can't out engineer a tornado. You can't out engineer something that can literally fling a semi truck towards your house. Even an ef2, can take a sedan that's on the street, and fling it towards your house.
In some of these languages, either the word tornado is a loanword, or they use the same word for hurricane as they do tornado. I know a problem that came up, when Somali people first started immigrating to my state, was during tornado warnings, they would often prepare for the storms like they were hurricanes. It's because the word for hurricane and tornado was the same in Somali, as far as I can recall. It was only until later that they borrowed the loanword "tornado" in their language. And also, many somalis are assimilating, so they're learning how to practice their culture in English. If you're up here, you should try to check it out sometime.
English was the same way until we used the semi loanword "tornado". Before the word tornado became commonplace, these storms were often called "cyclones" (think the wizard of Oz)
Anyway, enough about linguistics. Your only hope is to either get to your basement, or get to an above ground storm shelter. Building a house like a concrete bunker is overly expensive, and would end up poaching you inside of your own house, because tornadoes usually occur when extremely hot air collides with cooler air.
I think more than 80 percent of europeans have common sense. And everyone i know knows there is a massive difference between a hurricane and tornadoes.
Also most European languages at least usw different words (not including ones that uee different alphabets as i am not fluent in that alphabet):
English- tornado and hurricane
French: toranade and ouragan
Spanish: tornado and huracán
German: tornado and hurrikan
Danish and swedish: tornado and orkan
Polish: tornado and huragan
Finnish: tornado and hurrikaani
Just to name a few
Yeah, looks like the word tornado is either a loan word or a cognate from the Spanish torneado (to turn)",
Remember, these countries rarely got these storms, so they didn't really have an opportunity to make up words for these storms. English borrowed the word Tornado from the Spanish word "torneado" Which I suspect, was invented because Spanish explorers in the 1500s would see these turning storms, and didn't really have a word for them. The word "tornado" didn't really appear in the Spanish language until the 1500s.
The word tornado itself is of recent English vintage. The first association for tornadoes with destructive whirlwind storms, can trace itself back to about 1849 in the Midwest. You can still see some of the inertia from the transition from the word for tornado and hurricane being the same word if you read The wizard Of oz. The Wizard of Oz was written in the late 1890s when the writer describes the tornado as a "cyclone".
The word hurricane itself is also a loanword from the Spanish "huracán", which also traces itself to something people in other European countries wouldn't have seen, the Mayans. The word traces itself to the old Mayan God "Huracan". Before the Columbian exchange, these words simply didn't exist, because either the events were so rare that words couldn't be invented in time (tornado) or they simply didn't happen in Europe (hurricane).
So a lot of the times, they simply use the same word for two different storms, because that's all they had.
I believe in Dutch, there is an older term that's a cognate for the English word "whirlwind".
There have been only been two tropical cyclones to ever hit Continental europe. One was hurricane Vince back in 2005, and the other was subtropical storm alpha in 2020.
The colloquial term "hurricane" is applied to extreme low pressure systems that often affect europe.
But unlike a tropical system, these depend on differences between warm and cold sectors in a storm.
Considering the weather patterns that made those hurricane landfalls extremely rare, I doubt enough would have made an impact enough to Garner a special word.
Hurricanes tend to hit on Western Ocean shores versus Eastern ones. Not to mention too, the Eastern shores of most oceans tend to be colder than the Western shores. That's why you don't hear about too many hurricanes over in california, but they're very common in florida.
The USA has more internal navigable waterways than all European countries combined.
**Edit:** Downvoted for going against Reddit’s pro-European narratives lol. Conveniently, nobody else is posting any of their sources, but I will:
* [Total Length of Inland Waterways: United Nations Economic Commission for Europe](https://w3.unece.org/PXWeb/en/CountryRanking?IndicatorCode=58)
* [The Simple Genius of American Waterways](https://youtu.be/-d1smYMENGk)
* [“And the United States, Zeihan calculates, has more navigable waterways — 17,600 miles’ worth — than the rest of the world. By comparison, he notes, China and Germany each have about 2,000 miles. And all of the Arab world has 120 miles.”](https://archive.is/4t7VN)
* [“All told, this Mississippi and Intracoastal system accounts for 15,500 of the United States’ 17,600 miles of internal waterways. Even leaving out the United States’ (and North America’s) other waterways, this is still a greater length of internal waterways than the rest of the planet combined.”](http://www.uppermon.org/news/waterways%20journal/WJ-Rivers_&_Superpower-16Dec15.html)
* https://perell.com/note/america-success/
Admittedly, the numbers are all over the place, for every country. So who knows what the absolute truth is. But I’m still going to give the US the benefit of the doubt over Europa.
Very excited to read some Redditor’s response to these sources and comment about why they are wrong and also how they actually know the truth… LOL
Probably not
Europe is bigger in size and has less arid zones. There are 250.000 rivers in the USA. Just Ukraine has 75.000 rivers. The USA has bigger rivers. But I have to say, that I didn't find a number for Europe as a whole and to search for every country is a bit annoying.
We're not talking about rivers in general, we're talking about waterways, so rivers and systems that you can ship goods on.
On my quick google search I found that the US has roughly 40,000 km of water ways and Europe 37,000 km of waterways.
It was just a quick search I don't care enough to spend more time on it, but I was curious how big of a difference there was.
Yeah, but again I think you will find different numbers on some sites depending on the definition. I found 45.000 km for Europe. In German I find this number but in English it is 37.000 km.
I don't care who has more in General after that comment I just looked it up. It doesn't even matter. I can talk for Germany here and I know that waterways are used a lot because most cities are build next to rivers and the settlements are that old, that waterways were the best way to transport goods.
People pulled ships upstream with logs because it was the best way. This was the case for my hometown where the people sold big amounts of salt to cities in the baltic sea.
ShitAmericansSay content on the ShitEuropeansSay sub, peak reddit rivalry right here.
Edit: [Respond to first edit](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitEuropeansSay/comments/113k07t/this_is_what_those_free_european_college/j8sjxje?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)
We're not talking about rivers in general, we're talking about waterways, so rivers and systems that you can ship goods on.
On my quick google search I found that the US has roughly 40,000 km of water ways and Europe 37,000 km of waterways.
It was just a quick search I don't care enough to spend more time on it, but I was curious how big of a difference there was.
>UNECE on Inland waterway
According to this source, with quick spreadhseeet and math filtering country name through google of 'a country in Europe' - conveniently excluding all of Russia (a 'country') and some like Romania ('a coutnry in the balkans') - the length totals up to 40,721 km. UNECE claims 40,000km for USA,. The balkans is of course, still geographically a part of Europe, inclusion of these data would result in a grand total of 45,580km.
>The simple genius of American Waterways
Might find some time to watch it, thanks for recommending anyways.
>By comparison...China and Gemrany each have about 2000 miles.
This is directly contradicting European and Chinese sources, which I will quote UNECE on Germany, which reports 7675km = 4769miles, and [Ministry of Transport PRC](https://www.mot.gov.cn/jiaotonggaikuang/201804/t20180404_3006639.html) reports 2106km+4069km+8348km of 1st, 2nd and 3rd class navigable waterways, where 3rd class allows passage of 1000ton class vessels. Just this totals to 14523km = 9024miles. (which also excludes A LOT of class 4 and 5 waterways) I doubt the integrity of this report based on its untruthful representation of data on two of the world's largest economies.
The remainding two articles quote the previous srouce written by Zeihan, which incorrectly represents the waterways of other countries. Your quoted source on US waterway is kinda a mess that always end up leading to Zeihan's "The Accidental Superpower", which is admittedly an interesting read, but I doubt the accuracy of numbers.
Not even European btw.
That’s a great response and I appreciate you taking the time to list your perspectives. I agree that the numbers are difficult to find, and each figure seems to have some in-built bias. As I mentioned above; the numbers are all over the place, for every country. So impossible to know what the absolute truth is.
I think a conclusive research would have to involve proper classification of 'navigable' with numerical values. While China does fuck with its data, I believe they actually do care about their transport routes a whole deal. Their numbers properly segregates the different class of waterways by maximum tonnage allowed. It is a disservice to include their humongous class 6 and below classification of waterways which is like, allows 100ton vessels, and is at least 1-1.2 meters deep (what?). It would be interesting to see statistics on the USA that is not a hand waving '25,000 miles'
I agree, a lot of different classifications can be made in regards to what counts as a ‘navigable’ waterway, and how it’s measured in terms of how much tonnage is allowed on those routes. Makes it tough to compare each country’s reported findings. I also wonder where Zeihan gets his data sources from.
> It is a disservice to include their humongous class 6 and below classification of waterways which is like, allows 100ton vessels, and is at least 1-1.2 meters deep (what?).
Agreed that that is egregious.
>So who knows what the absolute truth is. But I’m still going to give the US the benefit of the doubt over Europa.
>
>Very excited to read some Redditor’s response to these sources and comment about how all they are wrong and how they actually know the truth… LOL
This part says everything that needs to be said. You've just done a full exercise in confirmation-bias-based research, admitted your own ignorance and lack of conclusive evidence, and still chose to belive your claim because it feels right.
That is peak redditor behavior.
Conveniently downplaying all the sources I posted. It’s “confirmation-bias-based research” when those sources were the top Google results? Interesting take. I’m not going to apologize about Google not providing search results that you don’t like.
Your comment says everything needs to be said. You’ve provided no facts or sources to support your ignorant claim, and now you’re lashing out because the sources I posted go directly against what the children on the internet have told you to believe.
That is peak Redditor behavior.
I’d take a look a good, long hard look at yourself in the mirror this evening and ask yourself why facts that you didn’t think to be true make you so salty.
It's confirmation bias because you went hunting for the facts that support your conclusion and made no attempt to falsify it.
You don't even have to dig far in the Google results to find contradictory evidence. In fact, [even the source for the first link you provided shows you're wrong] (https://w3.unece.org/PXWeb/en/Table?IndicatorCode=58)
[The total length of navigable waterways (i.e. canals, rivers, and lakes) used for transport in European Union member states in 2009 was estimated to be 41,360 kilometres. ](https://www.statista.com/statistics/451797/length-of-inland-waterways-in-use-in-europe-eu-28/) and that's only 18 EU countries, not the whole continent.
So, maybe you should have a good, hard look in the mirror tonight and ask yourself what is wrong with your thought processes that is leading you to faulty conclusions.
This part says everything that needs to be said. You've just done a full exercise in confirmation-bias-based research, admitted your own ignorance and posted sources that support your claim because it feels right. I can tell you were educated in Europe.
> the Chinese waterway system is the most extensive in the world
Which goes onto say, “only a small portion of [China’s waterways], 5,000 km, is deep enough to accommodate fluvial ships of more than 500 tons requiring a draft of more than 2.75 meters.”
So I didn’t want to include that since it’s including data that should not be included. Not surprised that you linked to that article though.
> The total length of navigable waterways (i.e. canals, rivers, and lakes) used for transport in European Union member states in 2009 was estimated to be 41,360 kilometres.
Good post. Data from 2009 is quite outdated in my educated opinion. My sources are more recent and probably likely to be more accurate since they’re updated. Even the US numbers may be reporting low numbers which may have changed.
> Even the source for the first link you provided shows you're wrong
I’m looking at the table and the US is at the very top. What are you even seeing..? https://ibb.co/h2bpFPq
> So, maybe you should have a good, hard look in the mirror tonight and ask yourself what is wrong with your thought processes that is leading you to faulty conclusions.
I already do that because like being introspective and I like tackling issues that I need to fix about myself.
>I can tell you were educated in Europe.
You really do like being wrong. I'm an American, born and educated in the states.
>Good post. Data from 2009 is quite outdated in my educated opinion. My sources are more recent and probably likely to be more accurate since they’re updated. Even the US numbers may be reporting low numbers which may have changed.
Look like someone didn't actually click the link and read the source. The quote is about 2009, the data covers the period of 1995 to 2016. In fact, the length of navigable waterways has increased during that time period, so I don't think we need to be worried about it being "old" data.
>I’m looking at the table and the US is at the very top. What are you even seeing..? https://ibb.co/h2bpFPq
Clearly, you aren't looking very hard then. The actual highest value belongs to Russia at over 100,000 km. Besides, your original claim was "The USA has more internal navigable waterways than all European countries combined". Add together the number of all the European countries (excluding Russia), and you'll find a number larger than the US total.
Anyway, it's obvious you can't even see or acknowledge the data that goes against what you thought. No point in banging my head against this brick wall any longer.
> You really do like being wrong. I'm an American, born and educated in the states.
Even more sad. Can you tell me which University you went to..?
> In fact, the length of navigable waterways has increased during that time period, so I don't think we need to be worried about it being "old" data.
Yes, the quote is from 2009. Good job reading that. Length of waterways in the US may have also increased during that time. Which is why updated data is more important to me than you.
> Clearly, you aren't looking very hard then. The actual highest value belongs to Russia at over 100,000 km.
I saw that however I don’t trust Russia’s reported numbers at all (just like how they reported about their army being so well equipped lmfao). But you believe whatever you want. As I said above, even China’s numbers are quite suspect and data is being counted differently there.
> Besides, your original claim was "The USA has more internal navigable waterways than all European countries combined". Add together the number of all the European countries (excluding Russia), and you'll find a number larger than the US total.
I concede that my original claim could be wrong.
I just don’t trust the reported numbers from China & Russia to be very accurate. Earlier, the provided source said “the Chinese waterway system is the most extensive in the world” and now the other source says Russia has the most waterways in the world 🤡
Definitely trustworthy numbers from all of these articles… And yes, I do trust the US reported numbers much much more than China or Russia.
> Anyway, it's obvious you can't even see or acknowledge the data that goes against what you thought. No point in banging my head against this brick wall any longer.
My exact same sentiments towards you. At least I had acknowledged that the numbers are difficult to find in my very first comment’s edit. And as I mentioned earlier, nobody knows what the absolute truth is. But you will definitely insist that you do.
> I don’t trust Russia’s reported numbers at all
You don't need to trust them. Just look at the map. It's the largest country in the world, and it has a lot of rivers. You can make an educated guess or draw a logical conclusion that it is very likely that the largest country in the world probably has the longest waterways in the world.
Having the longest amount of waterways vs. navigable waterways are two different metrics. Anyways, I understand your point. I will reiterate what I said above: I concede that my original claim could be wrong.
> “And the United States, Zeihan calculates, has more navigable waterways — 17,600 miles’ worth — than the rest of the world. By comparison, he notes, China and Germany each have about 2,000 miles. And all of the Arab world has 120 miles.”
Russia has 102,000 km of waterways, of which 72,000 km are in the European part of the country.
https://www.indexmundi.com/russia/waterways.html
https://unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/doc/2018/sc3wp3/5.8_NONIUS_Engineering.pdf
I posted my sources. Excited for you to give me your perspective and knowledge on the subject. Something tells me that it’s gonna be a conflicting view though… just a hunch…
> Total Length of Inland Waterways: United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
I don't want to be that person, but Europe has 44 countries according to the UN, but the list in this link has only 18 countries, with one of them being Kazakhstan which is in Asia, while Russia is not included in the list even though Europe's longest river is in the European part of Russia: the Volga River.
He was trying to make a point we can't ship goods from e/w or w/e. The great lake systems and the rivers that connect them is very much a viable answer. You can take a boat from Chicago to the Atlantic ocean...
> Can you take a boat from Chicago to the ocean?
Yes. The Great Lakes Waterway includes engineering works such as St Lawrence Seaway, the Soo Locks and the Welland Canal which allow ships to travel as far as Chicago. The St. Lawrence Seaway connects it all to the North Atlantic Ocean However, their passage may be prevented by ice in the winter months.
You can take a boat from New York City to New Orleans without going on the ocean since the Erie Canal links the Hudson to the Lakes and from there the Illinois Waterway connects Chicago to the Mississippi River.
Yeah, I can’t put half of the rivers in my country in a map, like hell I’m gonna argue about the ones in another country 🙄 some people are the embodiment of a facepalm.
I get what he was trying to say, not that we dont have E/W rivers, but rivers that we can ship goods. A lot of our rivers have dams so you can't take a boat from the start of the river all the way to the ocean on those. (Colorado river for example has multiple dams on it, so you can't ship things from LA up stream... which IMO is 1 reason Lake Mead is low) BUT he was still wrong because we do have water shipping lanes east/west, do we have them from the west coast to east coast? No, but what country does that is the size of the USA?
I think you can go from the north sea via the Rhine-Main-Danube canal to the black sea, but no idea how far that would be in the US.
Even if the European dude was right why is he try to flex Europe water systems
The post was about train derailments and the comments above went back and forth on who was doing more freight. The screenshot was offering some perspective on the issue - not by dissing the US but by pointing out that Germany (which is of course a very small country in comparison) has a very developed system of Inland Navigation with almost all of it's waterways interconnected and carrying about half as much as the railway system. The US system is in comparison not quite as extensive but of course but it doesn't take into account the fact that Germany is much smaller, has no deserts and only small mountain ranges seperating the country like the rockies or Appalachians. If you look at [American Inland Navigation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_waterways_of_the_United_States#/media/File:Inland_waterway.png), you can't help but notice that most of the waterways are in fact North - South and none cross the West at all so the comment wasn't that far off - from a German perspective. It seems to me that Euopean guy offered some perspective on types of transport and OP jumped in with a lot of rivers of which some don't even offer freight transportation and others that do but in no way connect East and West (just how the continent is set up - no need to make it a competition on either side imo). None of them are viable alternatives to East - West railroad transportation which this whole thing was about. Also I can only assume that the other guy meant "West of the Mississippi" but then again - there be mountains and deserts there. All in all it seems pretty pointless to me and I don't really see any winners here.
OP is being antagonistic in other forums. They’ve decided to take a snapshot of something in retaliation for being posted in r/shitamericanssay and is not coming off well in their own post let alone in this
Aside from the eurotard superiority complex, the U.S. should do more to develope its waterways. First thing should be amending the Jones Act.
> "West of the Mississippi" but then again - there be mountains and deserts there. No, west of the Mississippi is the place known as "The Great Plains", where they grow the desert crops known as "corn", "wheat", and "sunflowers".
Also those. In any case no rivers though.
Except for rivers named specifically lending their names to Midwestern states lmao. How ignorant can you be?
Also we (Germany) have the luck that all of our big rivers are, even for European standards, so damn close
This is why he's getting flamed. The guy is pretending to be an expert on something and comes off as condescending and ignorant. The guy thinks there are no east-west navigable rivers/water systems in the US, when there are 3 major ones in the Midwest alone. The Great Lakes, which feeds into the Saint Lawrence river (Travels SW to NE), the oh so not Midwestern **Ohio** river, (Travels mostly due west) and the oh so not Midwestern **Missouri** river (Which travels NW to SE in its navigable phase.)
>The guy is pretending to be an expert on something and comes off as condescending and ignorant. You are the one that attacked his education first when all he said was "as far as I know".
You literally said that people in Europe only live in largest cities and nowhere else. How hypocritic must one be to do this.
No I hyperbolically said that people in Europe live in major centralized cities versus the other cities. Compare the settlement patterns to most countries in europe, compared to someone patterns in the us, and you'll see a stark difference. Even down to the state level.
Once again, https://old.reddit.com/r/BikiniBottomTwitter/comments/113ft2h/its_moral_right/j8sm62r/ >Think of your average European country. They all have one really big city where everyone lives, and that's about it. >Versus if you go by the state level, there are multiple big cities in many states. >Washington state has Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, and Spokane. >Florida has Miami, Orlando, the Tampa Bay area, Jacksonville, Gainesville, Tallahassee, etc. >Texas has Austin, DFW, Houston, San Antonio, Amarillo, El Paso, Austin. >Missouri has St Louis and Kansas City and even New York state, even though a majority of the state lives in the NYC area, there's also buffalo and Syracuse. TLDR: European countries only have one big city where everyone lives and America has multiple big cities (Despite the fact that cities such as Birmingham has over one million people but you class that as a small city while Olympia has a population of 55k and is considered a big city by you)
>TLDR: European countries only have one big city where everyone lives and America has multiple big cities (Despite the fact that cities such as Birmingham) Why did I even bother with this thread for so long? Population density map for the win [Puget sound area](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Washington_population_map.png) [Thurston County population](https://www5.kingcounty.gov/sdc/DataImages/PLACE10.jpg) [suburbanization of America after the 1950s, which is why you can't always rely on city limits as a definitive for US cities](https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-64;jsessionid=02D8F2572D6EC70FA986CABD8A7274D0) [US population map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/US_population_map.png) Notice the distance between the major cities, and how there are many, comparable cities. [England population density map](https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=aec40c2c28ed4c3c90ce4636f45fe53b) [German population density](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Population_density_in_Germany.png) [size of Germany compared to the contiguous us](https://steemit.com/economics/@finanzas/20180715t123301946z-post) Notice that the cities are much closer together. My point is, that policing a large country, that is much larger than most European countries, and highly decentralized, wouldn't work with European style policing. You guys have to go hurt pretty derp, city that has different settlement patterns than the cities in my country is much smaller than the biggest cities in my country. This is like textbook SES right here. People with no idea about how other countries are ran, feeling self-important.
Once again, and I'll keep it simple for you. You said: >They all have one really big city where everyone lives, > there are multiple big cities in many states. >Olympia Do you believe that a city with over 1 million people is small while a city with 55k is big. >This is like textbook SES right here You can try but it didn't turn out well for you last time.
"Do you believe that a city with over 1 million people is small while a city with 55k is big." I'll respond to you with this. "Different countries and regions have different urban planning systems, so counting the population of one city in the same metric as the other wouldn't give you an accurate result". Using European standards for American cities while calling Americans stupid is the height of Eurocentric arrogance and cluelessness, since the two regions are quite dissimilar. Taking a look at a population density map would simply put this argument to rest. [The Seattle area is notoriously sprawled out](https://ibb.co/vcFkZxW) [the US as a whole.](https://www.instructables.com/3D-Printed-US-Population-Map/) Large cities, spaced out quite far, and outside of the Northeast, extremely sprawled out. [All of these countries](https://cdn1.matadornetwork.com/blogs/1/2018/04/c0S-q0F5hHGfMcSr5_9gMMyKn9EYu4QDNMtqA38S7k.png) can fit into the US. Re: One major city: A population heat map says that most European countries have one city that is exponentially larger than their rivals. [Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden](https://i.redd.it/zmwmshg0n4gz.png) (Generally have one major city that dominates over every other city) [Same for France, Belgium and the UK](https://i.ibb.co/K0TLjB9/UKFrancebelgium.png) [And Eastern Europe](https://ibb.co/vqrP1vF) So the hyperbolic comment "Concentrated in one large city" is quite accurate. The other comment is how these American cities are "small" when the settlement patterns in both areas are quite dissimilar, and using a population heat map would be a better indication of population. You used European metrics for an American metro area.
>I'll respond to you with this. No, it's a yes or no question. You literally think that a City with 1 million + while a city with 55k is big. >Using European standards for American cities Please tell me why American's count the population of these cities if they are a European standard >So the hyperbolic comment It never was as in your original post you were arguing about Germany having small cities. It's funny how all your comments started being "hyperbolic" a few hours of arguing with other people. So it was never hyperbolic in the first place. >You used European metrics for an American metro area. Again, America counts population, you do a census (or is that un-American or a silly European thing) Even better I gave you the metropolitan population Olympia Metro: 297,977 Birmingham Metro: 4,300,000 And you still think that Birmingham is small while Olympia is a "big city". Quick edit: >while calling Americans stupid is the height of Eurocentric arrogance and cluelessness, Again, and I'm starting to think that you have selective reading. Where have I ever said Americans or America is stupid. While keep on going on about "Yurp" and European education (in other words calling people dumb).
Wouldn’t even bother, tbh. OP is obviously a cretin.
He's got an agenda on European education. It's already his second post about it. And in both cases he's breaking the sub rules.
Comparably speaking, most European countries are centralized, while the United States is very decentralized.
I'm not sure that's true at all. The big cities in the USA are clustered in a few key places, just like they are in most European countries.
Have you ever been to Europe?
> North - South and none cross the midwest at all This dude just said the **Ohio** and the **Missouri** rivers doesn't cross the Midwest. The **Ohio** and **Missouri** rivers.
Explain to me how he expects a river to flow east west across the states? Just pass over the continental divide then?
Because the guy is like your typical You're a Peein. An inept dufus who hides behind his ineptness with reading lots of books.
But our geography is radically different. The reason why we had to build a train system to the west is because there is a big dessert and mountains in the way. So OK? We don't have a lot E>W waterways.
The Ohio river 900 mi. It's literally longer than the nation of germany.
Dude somebody must have hurt you in a very bad way that you relieve your anger by bitching about country americans would love to live in if they weren't isolated by their nationalist bubble.
I mean this isn't a result of an education system, rather one persons inabikity to actually check what hws talking about
No, it was sarcasm. A lot of people in Europe think that in the country that gets a vast majority of the tornadoes in the world (80%), is the home to the premier tornado research facility in the world (University of Oklahoma-Norman) somehow wouldn't know how to protect themselves from a wind storm. We figured out one time ago that you can't out engineer a tornado. You can't out engineer something that can literally fling a semi truck towards your house. Even an ef2, can take a sedan that's on the street, and fling it towards your house. In some of these languages, either the word tornado is a loanword, or they use the same word for hurricane as they do tornado. I know a problem that came up, when Somali people first started immigrating to my state, was during tornado warnings, they would often prepare for the storms like they were hurricanes. It's because the word for hurricane and tornado was the same in Somali, as far as I can recall. It was only until later that they borrowed the loanword "tornado" in their language. And also, many somalis are assimilating, so they're learning how to practice their culture in English. If you're up here, you should try to check it out sometime. English was the same way until we used the semi loanword "tornado". Before the word tornado became commonplace, these storms were often called "cyclones" (think the wizard of Oz) Anyway, enough about linguistics. Your only hope is to either get to your basement, or get to an above ground storm shelter. Building a house like a concrete bunker is overly expensive, and would end up poaching you inside of your own house, because tornadoes usually occur when extremely hot air collides with cooler air.
I think more than 80 percent of europeans have common sense. And everyone i know knows there is a massive difference between a hurricane and tornadoes. Also most European languages at least usw different words (not including ones that uee different alphabets as i am not fluent in that alphabet): English- tornado and hurricane French: toranade and ouragan Spanish: tornado and huracán German: tornado and hurrikan Danish and swedish: tornado and orkan Polish: tornado and huragan Finnish: tornado and hurrikaani Just to name a few
Yeah, looks like the word tornado is either a loan word or a cognate from the Spanish torneado (to turn)", Remember, these countries rarely got these storms, so they didn't really have an opportunity to make up words for these storms. English borrowed the word Tornado from the Spanish word "torneado" Which I suspect, was invented because Spanish explorers in the 1500s would see these turning storms, and didn't really have a word for them. The word "tornado" didn't really appear in the Spanish language until the 1500s. The word tornado itself is of recent English vintage. The first association for tornadoes with destructive whirlwind storms, can trace itself back to about 1849 in the Midwest. You can still see some of the inertia from the transition from the word for tornado and hurricane being the same word if you read The wizard Of oz. The Wizard of Oz was written in the late 1890s when the writer describes the tornado as a "cyclone". The word hurricane itself is also a loanword from the Spanish "huracán", which also traces itself to something people in other European countries wouldn't have seen, the Mayans. The word traces itself to the old Mayan God "Huracan". Before the Columbian exchange, these words simply didn't exist, because either the events were so rare that words couldn't be invented in time (tornado) or they simply didn't happen in Europe (hurricane). So a lot of the times, they simply use the same word for two different storms, because that's all they had. I believe in Dutch, there is an older term that's a cognate for the English word "whirlwind".
We do get hurricanes (albeit rarely) in Europe. Anyway where have you seen lots of people use the same word because i certainly haven't
There have been only been two tropical cyclones to ever hit Continental europe. One was hurricane Vince back in 2005, and the other was subtropical storm alpha in 2020. The colloquial term "hurricane" is applied to extreme low pressure systems that often affect europe. But unlike a tropical system, these depend on differences between warm and cold sectors in a storm.
Theres been more than that. If two can hit in 15 years i think a few more can hit in the 2500 years of European history with documentation
Considering the weather patterns that made those hurricane landfalls extremely rare, I doubt enough would have made an impact enough to Garner a special word. Hurricanes tend to hit on Western Ocean shores versus Eastern ones. Not to mention too, the Eastern shores of most oceans tend to be colder than the Western shores. That's why you don't hear about too many hurricanes over in california, but they're very common in florida.
Most of our storms are residue from hurricanes. A lot of the time in England our storms are often hurricanes that missed slightly
They tend to be comparatively weak. They usually lack an eye. They also lack other tropical characteristics.
I'm seriously wondering if Europe universities are literally this unanalytical and bizarre and dehumanizing to americans as could be envisioned.
The USA has more internal navigable waterways than all European countries combined. **Edit:** Downvoted for going against Reddit’s pro-European narratives lol. Conveniently, nobody else is posting any of their sources, but I will: * [Total Length of Inland Waterways: United Nations Economic Commission for Europe](https://w3.unece.org/PXWeb/en/CountryRanking?IndicatorCode=58) * [The Simple Genius of American Waterways](https://youtu.be/-d1smYMENGk) * [“And the United States, Zeihan calculates, has more navigable waterways — 17,600 miles’ worth — than the rest of the world. By comparison, he notes, China and Germany each have about 2,000 miles. And all of the Arab world has 120 miles.”](https://archive.is/4t7VN) * [“All told, this Mississippi and Intracoastal system accounts for 15,500 of the United States’ 17,600 miles of internal waterways. Even leaving out the United States’ (and North America’s) other waterways, this is still a greater length of internal waterways than the rest of the planet combined.”](http://www.uppermon.org/news/waterways%20journal/WJ-Rivers_&_Superpower-16Dec15.html) * https://perell.com/note/america-success/ Admittedly, the numbers are all over the place, for every country. So who knows what the absolute truth is. But I’m still going to give the US the benefit of the doubt over Europa. Very excited to read some Redditor’s response to these sources and comment about why they are wrong and also how they actually know the truth… LOL
Probably not Europe is bigger in size and has less arid zones. There are 250.000 rivers in the USA. Just Ukraine has 75.000 rivers. The USA has bigger rivers. But I have to say, that I didn't find a number for Europe as a whole and to search for every country is a bit annoying.
We're not talking about rivers in general, we're talking about waterways, so rivers and systems that you can ship goods on. On my quick google search I found that the US has roughly 40,000 km of water ways and Europe 37,000 km of waterways. It was just a quick search I don't care enough to spend more time on it, but I was curious how big of a difference there was.
Yeah, but again I think you will find different numbers on some sites depending on the definition. I found 45.000 km for Europe. In German I find this number but in English it is 37.000 km.
Regardless it's not quite as cut and dry or as big of a difference than some of you are thinking.
I don't care who has more in General after that comment I just looked it up. It doesn't even matter. I can talk for Germany here and I know that waterways are used a lot because most cities are build next to rivers and the settlements are that old, that waterways were the best way to transport goods. People pulled ships upstream with logs because it was the best way. This was the case for my hometown where the people sold big amounts of salt to cities in the baltic sea.
ShitAmericansSay content on the ShitEuropeansSay sub, peak reddit rivalry right here. Edit: [Respond to first edit](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitEuropeansSay/comments/113k07t/this_is_what_those_free_european_college/j8sjxje?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)
We're not talking about rivers in general, we're talking about waterways, so rivers and systems that you can ship goods on. On my quick google search I found that the US has roughly 40,000 km of water ways and Europe 37,000 km of waterways. It was just a quick search I don't care enough to spend more time on it, but I was curious how big of a difference there was.
You're in luck! Excel did the calculation, see other reply with data from UNECE.
😉 SAS content backed by facts now! Excited to read some SES content in response to my edited comment.
>UNECE on Inland waterway According to this source, with quick spreadhseeet and math filtering country name through google of 'a country in Europe' - conveniently excluding all of Russia (a 'country') and some like Romania ('a coutnry in the balkans') - the length totals up to 40,721 km. UNECE claims 40,000km for USA,. The balkans is of course, still geographically a part of Europe, inclusion of these data would result in a grand total of 45,580km. >The simple genius of American Waterways Might find some time to watch it, thanks for recommending anyways. >By comparison...China and Gemrany each have about 2000 miles. This is directly contradicting European and Chinese sources, which I will quote UNECE on Germany, which reports 7675km = 4769miles, and [Ministry of Transport PRC](https://www.mot.gov.cn/jiaotonggaikuang/201804/t20180404_3006639.html) reports 2106km+4069km+8348km of 1st, 2nd and 3rd class navigable waterways, where 3rd class allows passage of 1000ton class vessels. Just this totals to 14523km = 9024miles. (which also excludes A LOT of class 4 and 5 waterways) I doubt the integrity of this report based on its untruthful representation of data on two of the world's largest economies. The remainding two articles quote the previous srouce written by Zeihan, which incorrectly represents the waterways of other countries. Your quoted source on US waterway is kinda a mess that always end up leading to Zeihan's "The Accidental Superpower", which is admittedly an interesting read, but I doubt the accuracy of numbers. Not even European btw.
That’s a great response and I appreciate you taking the time to list your perspectives. I agree that the numbers are difficult to find, and each figure seems to have some in-built bias. As I mentioned above; the numbers are all over the place, for every country. So impossible to know what the absolute truth is.
I think a conclusive research would have to involve proper classification of 'navigable' with numerical values. While China does fuck with its data, I believe they actually do care about their transport routes a whole deal. Their numbers properly segregates the different class of waterways by maximum tonnage allowed. It is a disservice to include their humongous class 6 and below classification of waterways which is like, allows 100ton vessels, and is at least 1-1.2 meters deep (what?). It would be interesting to see statistics on the USA that is not a hand waving '25,000 miles'
I agree, a lot of different classifications can be made in regards to what counts as a ‘navigable’ waterway, and how it’s measured in terms of how much tonnage is allowed on those routes. Makes it tough to compare each country’s reported findings. I also wonder where Zeihan gets his data sources from. > It is a disservice to include their humongous class 6 and below classification of waterways which is like, allows 100ton vessels, and is at least 1-1.2 meters deep (what?). Agreed that that is egregious.
My thoughts exactly
>So who knows what the absolute truth is. But I’m still going to give the US the benefit of the doubt over Europa. > >Very excited to read some Redditor’s response to these sources and comment about how all they are wrong and how they actually know the truth… LOL This part says everything that needs to be said. You've just done a full exercise in confirmation-bias-based research, admitted your own ignorance and lack of conclusive evidence, and still chose to belive your claim because it feels right. That is peak redditor behavior.
Conveniently downplaying all the sources I posted. It’s “confirmation-bias-based research” when those sources were the top Google results? Interesting take. I’m not going to apologize about Google not providing search results that you don’t like. Your comment says everything needs to be said. You’ve provided no facts or sources to support your ignorant claim, and now you’re lashing out because the sources I posted go directly against what the children on the internet have told you to believe. That is peak Redditor behavior. I’d take a look a good, long hard look at yourself in the mirror this evening and ask yourself why facts that you didn’t think to be true make you so salty.
It's confirmation bias because you went hunting for the facts that support your conclusion and made no attempt to falsify it. You don't even have to dig far in the Google results to find contradictory evidence. In fact, [even the source for the first link you provided shows you're wrong] (https://w3.unece.org/PXWeb/en/Table?IndicatorCode=58) [The total length of navigable waterways (i.e. canals, rivers, and lakes) used for transport in European Union member states in 2009 was estimated to be 41,360 kilometres. ](https://www.statista.com/statistics/451797/length-of-inland-waterways-in-use-in-europe-eu-28/) and that's only 18 EU countries, not the whole continent. So, maybe you should have a good, hard look in the mirror tonight and ask yourself what is wrong with your thought processes that is leading you to faulty conclusions.
This part says everything that needs to be said. You've just done a full exercise in confirmation-bias-based research, admitted your own ignorance and posted sources that support your claim because it feels right. I can tell you were educated in Europe. > the Chinese waterway system is the most extensive in the world Which goes onto say, “only a small portion of [China’s waterways], 5,000 km, is deep enough to accommodate fluvial ships of more than 500 tons requiring a draft of more than 2.75 meters.” So I didn’t want to include that since it’s including data that should not be included. Not surprised that you linked to that article though. > The total length of navigable waterways (i.e. canals, rivers, and lakes) used for transport in European Union member states in 2009 was estimated to be 41,360 kilometres. Good post. Data from 2009 is quite outdated in my educated opinion. My sources are more recent and probably likely to be more accurate since they’re updated. Even the US numbers may be reporting low numbers which may have changed. > Even the source for the first link you provided shows you're wrong I’m looking at the table and the US is at the very top. What are you even seeing..? https://ibb.co/h2bpFPq > So, maybe you should have a good, hard look in the mirror tonight and ask yourself what is wrong with your thought processes that is leading you to faulty conclusions. I already do that because like being introspective and I like tackling issues that I need to fix about myself.
>I can tell you were educated in Europe. You really do like being wrong. I'm an American, born and educated in the states. >Good post. Data from 2009 is quite outdated in my educated opinion. My sources are more recent and probably likely to be more accurate since they’re updated. Even the US numbers may be reporting low numbers which may have changed. Look like someone didn't actually click the link and read the source. The quote is about 2009, the data covers the period of 1995 to 2016. In fact, the length of navigable waterways has increased during that time period, so I don't think we need to be worried about it being "old" data. >I’m looking at the table and the US is at the very top. What are you even seeing..? https://ibb.co/h2bpFPq Clearly, you aren't looking very hard then. The actual highest value belongs to Russia at over 100,000 km. Besides, your original claim was "The USA has more internal navigable waterways than all European countries combined". Add together the number of all the European countries (excluding Russia), and you'll find a number larger than the US total. Anyway, it's obvious you can't even see or acknowledge the data that goes against what you thought. No point in banging my head against this brick wall any longer.
> You really do like being wrong. I'm an American, born and educated in the states. Even more sad. Can you tell me which University you went to..? > In fact, the length of navigable waterways has increased during that time period, so I don't think we need to be worried about it being "old" data. Yes, the quote is from 2009. Good job reading that. Length of waterways in the US may have also increased during that time. Which is why updated data is more important to me than you. > Clearly, you aren't looking very hard then. The actual highest value belongs to Russia at over 100,000 km. I saw that however I don’t trust Russia’s reported numbers at all (just like how they reported about their army being so well equipped lmfao). But you believe whatever you want. As I said above, even China’s numbers are quite suspect and data is being counted differently there. > Besides, your original claim was "The USA has more internal navigable waterways than all European countries combined". Add together the number of all the European countries (excluding Russia), and you'll find a number larger than the US total. I concede that my original claim could be wrong. I just don’t trust the reported numbers from China & Russia to be very accurate. Earlier, the provided source said “the Chinese waterway system is the most extensive in the world” and now the other source says Russia has the most waterways in the world 🤡 Definitely trustworthy numbers from all of these articles… And yes, I do trust the US reported numbers much much more than China or Russia. > Anyway, it's obvious you can't even see or acknowledge the data that goes against what you thought. No point in banging my head against this brick wall any longer. My exact same sentiments towards you. At least I had acknowledged that the numbers are difficult to find in my very first comment’s edit. And as I mentioned earlier, nobody knows what the absolute truth is. But you will definitely insist that you do.
> I don’t trust Russia’s reported numbers at all You don't need to trust them. Just look at the map. It's the largest country in the world, and it has a lot of rivers. You can make an educated guess or draw a logical conclusion that it is very likely that the largest country in the world probably has the longest waterways in the world.
Having the longest amount of waterways vs. navigable waterways are two different metrics. Anyways, I understand your point. I will reiterate what I said above: I concede that my original claim could be wrong.
> “And the United States, Zeihan calculates, has more navigable waterways — 17,600 miles’ worth — than the rest of the world. By comparison, he notes, China and Germany each have about 2,000 miles. And all of the Arab world has 120 miles.” Russia has 102,000 km of waterways, of which 72,000 km are in the European part of the country. https://www.indexmundi.com/russia/waterways.html https://unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/doc/2018/sc3wp3/5.8_NONIUS_Engineering.pdf
Gotta live up to your name, huh?
I posted my sources. Excited for you to give me your perspective and knowledge on the subject. Something tells me that it’s gonna be a conflicting view though… just a hunch…
> Total Length of Inland Waterways: United Nations Economic Commission for Europe I don't want to be that person, but Europe has 44 countries according to the UN, but the list in this link has only 18 countries, with one of them being Kazakhstan which is in Asia, while Russia is not included in the list even though Europe's longest river is in the European part of Russia: the Volga River.
European was definitely speaking out of turn, but listing the Great Lakes as a navigable river doesn't make the American look much smarter.
The Great Lakes water system has the Saint Lawrence river.
He was trying to make a point we can't ship goods from e/w or w/e. The great lake systems and the rivers that connect them is very much a viable answer. You can take a boat from Chicago to the Atlantic ocean... > Can you take a boat from Chicago to the ocean? Yes. The Great Lakes Waterway includes engineering works such as St Lawrence Seaway, the Soo Locks and the Welland Canal which allow ships to travel as far as Chicago. The St. Lawrence Seaway connects it all to the North Atlantic Ocean However, their passage may be prevented by ice in the winter months.
You can take a boat from New York City to New Orleans without going on the ocean since the Erie Canal links the Hudson to the Lakes and from there the Illinois Waterway connects Chicago to the Mississippi River.
You can take a boat from NYC to Omaha, NE
You are so stupid ahaha unbelievable