North America · Central America
How to draw El Salvador from memory
El Salvador is a single continuous landmass, wider than it is tall. Lock that proportion in before you worry about any individual stretch of border. Its border is simple by world standards, which makes it a good place to build confidence — and also means a low score here has nowhere to hide.
- Difficulty
- easy
- Population
- 6.5 m
- Code
- SLV
Draw El Salvador
Practice · draw from memory
El Salvador
A four-step strategy for El Salvador
- 01
Draw a wide, shallow guide box in your head first — El Salvador is much wider than tall, and getting that ratio right is worth more than any single coastline.
- 02
Anchor one unmistakable feature — the straightest border section or the sharpest cape — and draw outward from it in a single continuous stroke.
- 03
Close the loop back to where you started. An open shape gets filled unpredictably and drags your score down.
- 04
Submit, read the nine-sector grid, and redraw immediately. The sector readout names the region you under-drew, and a second attempt typically gains 10–20 points.
Top scores for El Salvador
Nobody has submitted a score for El Salvador yet. Draw it above and you are first on this board.
Full leaderboard →Quick facts
- Continent
- North America
- Subregion
- Central America
- Outline pieces
- 1
- Detail score
- 2.07
Three things that go wrong when people sketch El Salvador
Each one is measured off the outline the game scores, not copied from a reference atlas: the proportions, the straight sections and the way the shape breaks into pieces are all properties of the coordinates your stroke gets compared against.
It narrows sharply toward the north
The outline is 2.1× wider at the bottom of the shape than at the top, so the broad part belongs in the south. Most failed sketches here put the wide section at the wrong end.
El Salvador is wider than it is tall
The finished outline holds a ratio of about 1.83 to 1, a horizontal shape. Most failed attempts come from defaulting to a squarish blob — and unlike position, aspect ratio is never normalised away by the scorer.
Close the loop before adding detail
El Salvador occupies a 440×240 unit box on the game canvas. Fill that box with one continuous closed stroke first: the scorer compares filled area, so an open outline loses the interior it never enclosed.
Answer key: the real shape of El Salvador
- Box on the canvas
- 440 × 240 units
- Width to height
- 1.83 : 1
- Separate landmasses
- 1
- Longest straight run
- Nothing over 8% of the perimeter
- Coast against silhouette
- 1.16× the wrapping outline
Open it after you have drawn El Salvador at least once. Seeing the shape first replaces the recall the score is meant to measure with tracing, and tracing always scores higher than remembering.
Why El Salvador is scored this way
Country Drawing does not compare your sketch to a picture of El Salvador. It scales and centres both your stroke and the real border into the same box, fills them, and measures how much of the two shapes overlap relative to their combined area. That means you are never punished for drawing El Salvador small, off to one side, or rotated slightly — only for getting the shape itself wrong. The nine-sector grid then splits the real border into a 3×3 mesh and reports coverage per cell, which is how it can tell you that you lost the whole eastern edge rather than just handing you a number.
El Salvador by the numbers
El Salvador covers 21,041 km², which makes it the 148th largest of 190 countries in the game and the 12th largest in North America. The capital is San Salvador at about 14°N, 89°W, and it sits in Central America. It touches Guatemala and Honduras, and 100% of its area sits in one main landmass. The rest of the perimeter is water.
Next to El Salvador: its land neighbours
Size is what the outline has to fill, so comparing the countries that share this border side by side is the fastest way to get the proportions into your head before you draw.
| Country | Area | Population | Capital | Pieces | vs El Salvador |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| El Salvadorthis page | 21,041 km² | 6.5 m | San Salvador | 1 | — |
 Guatemala | 108,889 km² | 16.6 m | Guatemala City | 1 | 5.18× |
 Honduras | 112,492 km² | 9.7 m | Tegucigalpa | 1 | 5.35× |
Draw these next
Countries near El Salvador share border conventions and coastline styles, which makes them the most useful follow-up practice.
Working through one country at a time is slow. Take the blank map of north america and label the whole region from memory — it shows you which neighbours you have never actually seen.
El Salvador drawing questions
How big is El Salvador?
El Salvador covers 21,041 km², ranking 148th of 190 countries here by land area and 12th in North America. About 19% of the area of Honduras.
What is the capital of El Salvador?
The capital is San Salvador at about 14°N, 89°W. The game scores the shape of the border rather than the position of any city, so the capital and its coordinates are here to help you place El Salvador on a blank map.
Is El Salvador hard to draw?
It is rated easy, and carries more outline detail than 26% of the 190 borders in this game. The shape has to be placed as 1 landmass, with no straight edge longer than 8% of the perimeter to anchor it.
Which countries border El Salvador?
El Salvador shares a land border with Guatemala and Honduras. The remaining perimeter is coast, which is the part that usually costs points.