Africa · Eastern Africa
How to draw Malawi from memory
Malawi is a single continuous landmass, taller than it is wide. Lock that proportion in before you worry about any individual stretch of border. It ranks among the hardest countries to draw: the border carries far more detail than a freehand stroke can capture, so anything above 50 is a strong result.
- Difficulty
- hard
- Population
- 18.6 m
- Code
- MWI
Draw Malawi
Practice · draw from memory
Malawi
A four-step strategy for Malawi
- 01
Start with a tall, narrow mental guide box. Malawi is much taller than it is wide, and squashing it is the single most common mistake.
- 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 Malawi
Nobody has submitted a score for Malawi yet. Draw it above and you are first on this board.
Full leaderboard →Quick facts
- Continent
- Africa
- Subregion
- Eastern Africa
- Outline pieces
- 1
- Detail score
- 3.93
Three things that go wrong when people sketch Malawi
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.
Both ends are pinched
The widest slice across the centre is 1.6× broader than either the northern or the southern edge. Place the two narrow ends early and the bulge between them cannot come out wrong.
Malawi is taller than it is wide
The finished outline holds a ratio of about 0.41 to 1, a vertical 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
Malawi occupies a 178×440 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 Malawi
- Box on the canvas
- 178 × 440 units
- Width to height
- 0.41 : 1
- Separate landmasses
- 1
- Longest straight run
- Nothing over 8% of the perimeter
- Coast against silhouette
- 1.23× the wrapping outline
Open it after you have drawn Malawi 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 Malawi is scored this way
Country Drawing does not compare your sketch to a picture of Malawi. 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 Malawi 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 coastline rather than just handing you a number.
Malawi by the numbers
Malawi covers 118,484 km², which makes it the 98th largest of 190 countries in the game and the 37th largest in Africa. The capital is Lilongwe at about 14°S, 34°E, and it sits in Eastern Africa. It touches Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia, and 100% of its area sits in one main landmass. Being landlocked, there is no sea edge to help you orient it.
Next to Malawi: 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 Malawi |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Malawithis page | 118,484 km² | 18.6 m | Lilongwe | 1 | — |
 Mozambique | 801,590 km² | 30.4 m | Maputo | 1 | 6.77× |
 Tanzania | 945,087 km² | 58.0 m | Dodoma | 1 | 7.98× |
 Zambia | 752,612 km² | 17.9 m | Lusaka | 1 | 6.35× |
Draw these next
Countries near Malawi 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.
Malawi drawing questions
How big is Malawi?
Malawi covers 118,484 km², ranking 98th of 190 countries here by land area and 37th in Africa. About 13% of the area of Tanzania.
What is the capital of Malawi?
The capital is Lilongwe at about 14°S, 34°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 Malawi on a blank map.
Is Malawi hard to draw?
It is rated hard, and carries more outline detail than 74% 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 Malawi?
Malawi shares a land border with Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia, so the entire outline is made of these frontiers.