Blank map
Blank map of Europe with all 44 countries
One unlabeled outline of every country this site counts as European, drawn from the same Natural Earth geometry the drawing game scores you against — not a stylised cartoon of the continent. Print it and fill it in, then check the labelled answer key below, with the capital, area and population of all 44 countries in a single table.
The map, without labels
Every outline sits where the country actually is, on one shared projection framed on longitude 26° W to 60° E and latitude 34° N to 72° N. Nothing has been moved, enlarged or tidied up: the British Isles are where the British Isles are, and Iceland is the modest shape in the north-west corner rather than the generous one you remember from a wall map. That is the point. A quiz map that flatters the small countries teaches you a map that does not exist, and the first thing you notice when you fill this one in is how much of Europe is actually water.
It is drawn in Lambert azimuthal equal-area — the projection the European Environment Agency uses for its own Europe maps — rather than the Mercator a web map uses. Mercator is fine for directions and ruinous for memory: it inflates land eightfold at 70° N, which is why a Mercator Europe map is mostly Scandinavia and why so many people draw Sweden larger than Spain. Here the areas are honest, so 505,992 km² of Spain visibly outweighs 450,295 km² of Sweden, and you get to learn the difference off the map rather than off a correction.
The micro-states are in the data but not legible at this scale. Andorra, Malta, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Monaco, Vatican City cover 1,007 km² between them — less than half of Luxembourg — so on a map of the whole continent they are dots, and dots smaller than the stroke width. They are in the table below with their capitals instead.
Answer key — the same map with country names
A name is printed only where the outline is wide enough to hold it without covering a neighbour, which is why some shapes stay blank here too. On a desktop browser, hover any outline to get its name in a tooltip; for the rest, read them off the table underneath.
How many countries are in Europe? It is 44 here
There is no single correct number, because Europe's eastern edge is a convention rather than a coastline. This map uses the grouping the game itself is organised by: 44 countries, following the UN geoscheme, which puts Turkey, Cyprus, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in Asia and files the whole of Russia under Europe. The practical consequence is that two honest reference maps can disagree by six countries — so pick one and be consistent, and expect a quiz to tell you it is right and the other one is a map of Western Eurasia. The four subregions in the table are the UN's own divisions, which is why they line up with what other atlases call Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western Europe.
| Subregion | Countries | Area (km²) | Population | Largest | Smallest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southern Europe | 15 | 1,316,963 | 150.9 m | Spain | Vatican City |
| Eastern Europe | 10 | 18,826,067 | 291.1 m | Russia | Moldova |
| Northern Europe | 10 | 1,746,874 | 105.1 m | Sweden | Denmark |
| Western Europe | 9 | 1,109,090 | 197.2 m | France | Monaco |
All 44 countries: area, population and capital
Sorted largest first. Each name links to that country's drawing page, where the same outline is the thing you sketch and get scored on — useful once you have filled the blank map in and want to check a shape rather than a name. Between them these 44 countries cover 22,998,994 km² and about 744.3 m people.
| Country | Subregion | Capital | Area (km²) | Population | Coast |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Russia | Eastern Europe | Moscow | 17,098,242 | 144.4 m | coastal |
| Ukraine | Eastern Europe | Kyiv | 603,500 | 44.4 m | coastal |
| France | Western Europe | Paris | 551,695 | 67.1 m | coastal |
| Spain | Southern Europe | Madrid | 505,992 | 47.1 m | coastal |
| Sweden | Northern Europe | Stockholm | 450,295 | 10.3 m | coastal |
| Germany | Western Europe | Berlin | 357,114 | 83.1 m | coastal |
| Finland | Northern Europe | Helsinki | 338,424 | 5.5 m | coastal |
| Norway | Northern Europe | Oslo | 323,802 | 5.3 m | coastal |
| Poland | Eastern Europe | Warsaw | 312,679 | 38.0 m | coastal |
| Italy | Southern Europe | Rome | 301,336 | 60.3 m | coastal |
| United Kingdom | Northern Europe | London | 242,900 | 66.8 m | coastal |
| Romania | Eastern Europe | Bucharest | 238,391 | 19.4 m | coastal |
| Belarus | Eastern Europe | Minsk | 207,600 | 9.5 m | landlocked |
| Greece | Southern Europe | Athens | 131,990 | 10.7 m | coastal |
| Bulgaria | Eastern Europe | Sofia | 110,879 | 7.0 m | coastal |
| Iceland | Northern Europe | Reykjavik | 103,000 | 361 k | coastal |
| Hungary | Eastern Europe | Budapest | 93,028 | 9.8 m | landlocked |
| Portugal | Southern Europe | Lisbon | 92,090 | 10.3 m | coastal |
| Serbia | Southern Europe | Belgrade | 88,361 | 6.9 m | landlocked |
| Austria | Western Europe | Vienna | 83,871 | 8.9 m | landlocked |
| Czechia | Eastern Europe | Prague | 78,865 | 10.7 m | landlocked |
| Ireland | Northern Europe | Dublin | 70,273 | 4.9 m | coastal |
| Lithuania | Northern Europe | Vilnius | 65,300 | 2.8 m | coastal |
| Latvia | Northern Europe | Riga | 64,559 | 1.9 m | coastal |
| Croatia | Southern Europe | Zagreb | 56,594 | 4.1 m | coastal |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | Southern Europe | Sarajevo | 51,209 | 3.3 m | coastal |
| Slovakia | Eastern Europe | Bratislava | 49,037 | 5.5 m | landlocked |
| Estonia | Northern Europe | Tallinn | 45,227 | 1.3 m | coastal |
| Denmark | Northern Europe | Copenhagen | 43,094 | 5.8 m | coastal |
| Netherlands | Western Europe | Amsterdam | 41,850 | 17.3 m | coastal |
| Switzerland | Western Europe | Bern | 41,284 | 8.6 m | landlocked |
| Moldova | Eastern Europe | Chișinău | 33,846 | 2.7 m | landlocked |
| Belgium | Western Europe | Brussels | 30,528 | 11.5 m | coastal |
| Albania | Southern Europe | Tirana | 28,748 | 2.9 m | coastal |
| North Macedonia | Southern Europe | Skopje | 25,713 | 2.1 m | landlocked |
| Slovenia | Southern Europe | Ljubljana | 20,273 | 2.1 m | coastal |
| Montenegro | Southern Europe | Podgorica | 13,812 | 622 k | coastal |
| Luxembourg | Western Europe | Luxembourg | 2,586 | 620 k | landlocked |
| Andorra | Southern Europe | Andorra la Vella | 468 | 77 k | landlocked |
| Malta | Southern Europe | Valletta | 316 | 503 k | coastal |
| Liechtenstein | Western Europe | Vaduz | 160 | 38 k | landlocked |
| San Marino | Southern Europe | City of San Marino | 61 | 34 k | landlocked |
| Monaco | Western Europe | Monaco | 2 | 39 k | coastal |
| Vatican City | Southern Europe | Vatican City | 0 | 825 | landlocked |
Which European borders are the hardest to draw?
The detail column is measured, not guessed: it compares how much border a country carries with the area it encloses, then adds a penalty for every separate piece its outline falls into. A high number means more turns of the coast to remember and more disconnected shapes to position, which is why Norway heads this table despite being a modest landmass, and why the most fragmented outlines here — Norway, Denmark, Italy, Greece — are disproportionately painful for their size.
| Country | Detail | Pieces | Area (km²) | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Norway | 23.39 | 4 | 323,802 | hard |
| Greece | 10.99 | 3 | 131,990 | hard |
| United Kingdom | 9.08 | 2 | 242,900 | hard |
| Italy | 8.01 | 3 | 301,336 | hard |
| Denmark | 7.92 | 4 | 43,094 | hard |
| Russia | 7.50 | 1 | 17,098,242 | hard |
| Croatia | 6.13 | 1 | 56,594 | hard |
| Iceland | 5.91 | 1 | 103,000 | hard |
The three that surprise people are the small ones. Denmark is a peninsula plus the islands that make up the rest of it, and placing those pieces relative to each other is harder than drawing one large blob. Greece is a mainland with a broken southern end plus a couple of thousand islands nobody is expected to draw — but the scoring still misses the Peloponnese if you leave it out. Croatia has a coastline that hooks back on itself, and almost nobody draws the hook in the right direction.
How to use a blank map of Europe
- 01
Print at A3, or fill it in on screen
Open your browser's print dialog (Ctrl+P, or Cmd+P on a Mac) and the outlines switch to black lines on white with no labels and no adverts — the map is styled for paper as well as for the screen. A3 gives all of the outlines enough room to write inside; A4 is fine if you only want to quiz the larger countries.
- 02
Name them, do not colour them in
Colouring a printed map feels productive and teaches you very little, because the shapes do the recalling for you while your pencil matches a legend. Write the names instead, or say each one out loud as your pen moves. If you can label a country you can find it; if you can only shade it, you have memorised a palette rather than a map.
- 03
Work in bands, west to east
Start on the Atlantic fringe — Iceland, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain — then take the North Sea and Baltic rim, then the Alpine and Mediterranean middle, then the great eastern plain. That order roughly follows how the land reads on the page, and it stops you finishing with six blank holes in the centre of the continent.
- 04
Anchor the four relationships people get wrong
Denmark's position above Germany and west of Sweden; the Baltic states stacked in a row north-east of Poland; the thin strip of Portugal against Spain's western edge; and the Nordic peninsula's long taper towards the north-east rather than the north. Most errors on a map of Europe are these four relationships being wrong, not the big countries being missing.
- 05
Redraw the same map straight away
Check the answer key, mark what you got wrong, then print a second copy and fill it in again from memory in the same sitting. The second pass is where the learning actually happens. On the drawing game the same loop usually adds ten to twenty accuracy points between the first attempt and the second, because the feedback tells you which part of the outline you lost.
One more drill worth the time: cover the answer key and name the countries in order of size, largest first. Europe is the continent where people invert proportions most confidently — the United Kingdom, Ireland and Portugal all get drawn too large relative to Spain and France, and Iceland gets drawn the size of a US state. If your mental map holds Vatican City at 0.44 km² and Russia at 17,098,242 km² in the right proportions, those errors stop happening, and the rest of the continent falls into place around them.
Other blank maps
Blank map of Europe — questions
How many countries are in Europe?
This map has 44. The answer moves depending on where Europe's boundary with Asia is drawn and how transcontinental states get counted: the UN geoscheme puts Turkey, Cyprus, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in Asia, and files Russia under Europe, which is the convention this site follows. Other reasonable sources land anywhere between 44 and 50 — the Council of Europe has 46 members, the European Union has 27, and some school atlases add the six states above back on.
Is Russia in Europe?
Both halves are real. Russia is one country of 17,098,242 km² that straddles the Ural line, and it accounts for roughly 74% of the land area listed in the table on this page. About a quarter of Russian territory lies west of the Urals, in Europe — and that quarter on its own is still several times larger than any other European country. On the map here Russia is framed at 60° E, so Siberia is cut off; in the table its whole-country area is used, because that is the figure every reference source quotes.
Can I print this blank map of Europe for free?
Yes. The outlines are inline SVG rather than a picture, so they stay sharp at any paper size and print as black lines on white with no labels and no adverts around them. Use your browser's print command, choose landscape orientation, and scale to fit the page. There is nothing to download and no sign-up. The labelled answer key is further down the same page if you want a marked-up copy for yourself.
Why are some European territories missing from the map?
The frame runs from 26° W to 60° E and 34° N to 72° N, which is the extent a printed Europe map normally uses. Anything outside it is cut rather than squashed into a corner: Svalbard and the other Arctic archipelagoes above 72° N, Spain's Canary Islands, Portugal's Madeira, the Caribbean islands of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, France's overseas departments, and Russia's Pacific coast east of the Urals. The six countries the UN files in Asia are on the Asia map instead.
Which European country is hardest to draw from memory?
Norway, by a wide margin. Its measured border detail is 23.39 — about double the next European country — because the fjords multiply the coastline far beyond what any hand can reproduce. The score compares filled shapes, so you are not marked down for missing every inlet; you are marked down for getting the outer envelope wrong. After Norway come Greece, the United Kingdom, Italy and Denmark: four shapes made of several pieces that all have to sit in the right relationship to each other.
What is the easiest country in Europe to draw?
Among countries of real size, North Macedonia: 25,713 km² in 1 piece, with a border detail of 1.34. The micro-states are technically easier still — Andorra, Malta, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Monaco, Vatican City are so small that almost any reasonably placed blob wins — but they teach you nothing about the continent, because between them they hold 1,007 km², less than half of Luxembourg.
What is the largest country in Europe?
Russia, at 17,098,242 km², if you count a transcontinental country by its whole territory. If you only count countries whose entire landmass sits in Europe, the answer is Ukraine at 603,500 km². France follows at 551,695 km², then Spain and Sweden. Size and difficulty are unrelated here: Ukraine is one of the easier large outlines on the map, and Vatican City at 0.44 km² is trivial to draw but impossible to place.
Which European countries have no coastline?
14 of the 44 on this map are landlocked: Andorra, Austria, Belarus, Czechia, Hungary, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Moldova, North Macedonia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Switzerland and Vatican City. They are the reason Europe's interior is harder to draw than its coast looks — Belarus, Moldova, Serbia and North Macedonia have no shore to anchor them, so people place them by which countries they touch instead, and get the order of those wrong. Four of the landlocked countries here are micro-states: Andorra, Liechtenstein, San Marino and Vatican City.
How do I practise drawing Europe's borders, not just naming them?
Naming is half the skill; putting a shape where it belongs is the other half. That is what the game does: you draw a country from memory, it is scaled and centred against the real border, and you get an accuracy score plus a nine-sector grid showing which part of the outline you lost. The Europe country index has the same 44 shapes, sorted by how much detail each border carries, so you can work from forgiving outlines to painful ones in order.