Asia · Southern Asia
How to draw Iran from memory
Iran 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
- 82.9 m
- Code
- IRN
- Attempts
- 414
- Avg score
- 77
- Best
- 77
Draw Iran
Practice · draw from memory
Iran
A four-step strategy for Iran
- 01
Start by fixing the overall footprint. Iran 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.
PlumCobraQuick facts
- Continent
- Asia
- Subregion
- Southern Asia
- Outline pieces
- 1
- Detail score
- 2.38
Three things that go wrong when people sketch Iran
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.
Iran is close to square
Width against height comes out at 1.10 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.
Close the loop before adding detail
Iran occupies a 440×399 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.
Draw it bigger than feels natural
Position and size are normalised away before scoring, so a large sketch of Iran costs nothing and buys finer control over each turn of the coast.
Answer key: the real shape of Iran
- Box on the canvas
- 440 × 399 units
- Width to height
- 1.10 : 1
- Separate landmasses
- 1
- Longest straight run
- Nothing over 8% of the perimeter
- Coast against silhouette
- 1.3× the wrapping outline
Open it after you have drawn Iran 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 Iran is scored this way
Country Drawing does not compare your sketch to a picture of Iran. 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 Iran 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.
Iran by the numbers
Iran covers 1,648,195 km², which makes it the 16th largest of 190 countries in the game and the 5th largest in Asia. The capital is Tehran at about 32°N, 53°E, and it sits in Southern Asia. It touches Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey and Turkmenistan, and 100% of its area sits in one main landmass. The rest of the perimeter is water.
Next to Iran: 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 Iran |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iranthis page | 1,648,195 km² | 82.9 m | Tehran | 1 | — |
 Afghanistan | 652,230 km² | 38.0 m | Kabul | 1 | 0.4× |
 Armenia | 29,743 km² | 3.0 m | Yerevan | 1 | 0.02× |
 Azerbaijan | 86,600 km² | 10.0 m | Baku | 2 | 0.05× |
 Iraq | 438,317 km² | 39.3 m | Baghdad | 1 | 0.27× |
 Pakistan | 881,912 km² | 216.6 m | Islamabad | 1 | 0.54× |
 Turkey | 783,562 km² | 83.4 m | Ankara | 2 | 0.48× |
 Turkmenistan | 488,100 km² | 5.9 m | Ashgabat | 1 | 0.3× |
Draw these next
Countries near Iran 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 asia and label the whole region from memory — it shows you which neighbours you have never actually seen.
Iran drawing questions
How big is Iran?
Iran covers 1,648,195 km², ranking 16th of 190 countries here by land area and 5th in Asia. That is 1.9 times the area of Pakistan.
What is the capital of Iran?
The capital is Tehran at about 32°N, 53°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 Iran on a blank map.
Is Iran hard to draw?
It is rated medium, and carries more outline detail than 41% 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 Iran?
Iran shares a land border with Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey and Turkmenistan. The remaining perimeter is coast, which is the part that usually costs points.