Africa · Middle Africa
How to draw Gabon from memory
Gabon is a single continuous landmass, roughly as wide as it is tall. Lock that proportion in before you worry about any individual stretch of border. Its border sits in the middle of the difficulty range — enough straight sections to anchor you, enough detail to punish a careless stroke.
- Difficulty
- medium
- Population
- 2.2 m
- Code
- GAB
Draw Gabon
Practice · draw from memory
Gabon
A four-step strategy for Gabon
- 01
Start by fixing the overall footprint. Gabon is close to square overall, so a lopsided sketch loses points fast.
- 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 Gabon
Nobody has submitted a score for Gabon yet. Draw it above and you are first on this board.
Full leaderboard →Quick facts
- Continent
- Africa
- Subregion
- Middle Africa
- Outline pieces
- 1
- Detail score
- 3.16
Three things that go wrong when people sketch Gabon
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.
Not one straight edge to anchor the shape
The longest unbroken run in the whole outline is under 8% of the perimeter, and the coast folds back 1.58× on the smooth ring that would wrap it. Choose two deep inlets and one sharp promontory as anchors, and let everything between them stay approximate.
Both ends are pinched
The widest slice across the centre is 3× broader than either the northern or the southern edge. Place the two narrow ends early and the bulge between them cannot come out wrong.
Gabon is close to square
Width against height comes out at 0.93 to 1, so the shape neither runs away sideways nor stretches vertically. Set that box first: with a near-square country almost every lost point comes from the coast detail inside it, not the footprint.
Answer key: the real shape of Gabon
- Box on the canvas
- 408 × 440 units
- Width to height
- 0.93 : 1
- Separate landmasses
- 1
- Longest straight run
- Nothing over 8% of the perimeter
- Coast against silhouette
- 1.58× the wrapping outline
Open it after you have drawn Gabon 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 Gabon is scored this way
Country Drawing does not compare your sketch to a picture of Gabon. 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 Gabon 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.
Gabon by the numbers
Gabon covers 267,668 km², which makes it the 75th largest of 190 countries in the game and the 30th largest in Africa. The capital is Libreville at about 1°S, 12°E, and it sits in Middle Africa. It touches Cameroon, Republic of the Congo and Equatorial Guinea, and 100% of its area sits in one main landmass. The rest of the perimeter is water.
Next to Gabon: 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 Gabon |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gabonthis page | 267,668 km² | 2.2 m | Libreville | 1 | — |
 Cameroon | 475,442 km² | 25.9 m | Yaoundé | 1 | 1.78× |
 Republic of the Congo | 342,000 km² | 5.4 m | Brazzaville | 1 | 1.28× |
 Equatorial Guinea | 28,051 km² | 1.4 m | Malabo | 2 | 0.1× |
Draw these next
Countries near Gabon 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 africa and label the whole region from memory — it shows you which neighbours you have never actually seen.
Gabon drawing questions
How big is Gabon?
Gabon covers 267,668 km², ranking 75th of 190 countries here by land area and 30th in Africa. About 56% of the area of Cameroon.
What is the capital of Gabon?
The capital is Libreville at about 1°S, 12°E. 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 Gabon on a blank map.
Is Gabon hard to draw?
It is rated medium, and carries more outline detail than 61% 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 Gabon?
Gabon shares a land border with Cameroon, Republic of the Congo and Equatorial Guinea. The remaining perimeter is coast, which is the part that usually costs points.