Africa · Western Africa
How to draw Mali from memory
Mali 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
- 19.7 m
- Code
- MLI
- Attempts
- 117
- Avg score
- 56
- Best
- 56
Draw Mali
Practice · draw from memory
Mali
A four-step strategy for Mali
- 01
Start by fixing the overall footprint. Mali 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.
Quick facts
- Continent
- Africa
- Subregion
- Western Africa
- Outline pieces
- 1
- Detail score
- 2.79
Three things that go wrong when people sketch Mali
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.
The west edge is a ruler line, not a coast
About 14% of the perimeter runs in one unbroken direction along the west. Rivers and capes do not do that; a border was drawn on a map. Straighten it deliberately — a wobbly line there throws the whole bounding box.
Both ends are pinched
The widest slice across the centre is 1.7× broader than either the northern or the southern edge. Place the two narrow ends early and the bulge between them cannot come out wrong.
Mali is close to square
Width against height comes out at 1.06 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 Mali
- Box on the canvas
- 440 × 416 units
- Width to height
- 1.06 : 1
- Separate landmasses
- 1
- Longest straight run
- 14% of the perimeter, along the west
- Coast against silhouette
- 1.29× the wrapping outline
Open it after you have drawn Mali 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 Mali is scored this way
Country Drawing does not compare your sketch to a picture of Mali. 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 Mali 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.
Mali by the numbers
Mali covers 1,240,192 km², which makes it the 22nd largest of 190 countries in the game and the 8th largest in Africa. The capital is Bamako at about 17°N, 4°W, and it sits in Western Africa. It touches Algeria, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal, and 100% of its area sits in one main landmass. Being landlocked, there is no sea edge to help you orient it.
Next to Mali: 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 Mali |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Malithis page | 1,240,192 km² | 19.7 m | Bamako | 1 | — |
 Algeria | 2,381,741 km² | 43.1 m | Algiers | 1 | 1.92× |
 Burkina Faso | 272,967 km² | 20.3 m | Ouagadougou | 1 | 0.22× |
 Guinea | 245,857 km² | 12.8 m | Conakry | 1 | 0.2× |
 Ivory Coast | 322,463 km² | 25.7 m | Yamoussoukro | 1 | 0.26× |
 Mauritania | 1,030,700 km² | 4.5 m | Nouakchott | 1 | 0.83× |
 Niger | 1,267,000 km² | 23.3 m | Niamey | 1 | 1.02× |
 Senegal | 196,722 km² | 16.3 m | Dakar | 1 | 0.16× |
Draw these next
Countries near Mali 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.
Mali drawing questions
How big is Mali?
Mali covers 1,240,192 km², ranking 22nd of 190 countries here by land area and 8th in Africa. About 52% of the area of Algeria.
What is the capital of Mali?
The capital is Bamako at about 17°N, 4°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 Mali on a blank map.
Is Mali hard to draw?
It is rated medium, and carries more outline detail than 50% of the 190 borders in this game. The shape has to be placed as 1 landmass, with about 14% of the perimeter running dead straight along the west.
Which countries border Mali?
Mali shares a land border with Algeria, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal; about 14% of the outline runs dead straight along the west, because that frontier was drawn on a map rather than along a river.