Africa · Eastern Africa
How to draw Mozambique from memory
Mozambique 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
- 30.4 m
- Code
- MOZ
Draw Mozambique
Practice · draw from memory
Mozambique
A four-step strategy for Mozambique
- 01
Start with a tall, narrow mental guide box. Mozambique 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 Mozambique
Nobody has submitted a score for Mozambique 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
- 4.48
Three things that go wrong when people sketch Mozambique
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 1.7× 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.
It narrows sharply toward the south
Measured across, the outline is 2.9× wider near its northern edge than near its southern one. A sketch that keeps the same width all the way down looks plausible and scores badly, because a missing taper is missing area.
Mozambique is taller than it is wide
The finished outline holds a ratio of about 0.61 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.
Answer key: the real shape of Mozambique
- Box on the canvas
- 269 × 440 units
- Width to height
- 0.61 : 1
- Separate landmasses
- 1
- Longest straight run
- Nothing over 8% of the perimeter
- Coast against silhouette
- 1.7× the wrapping outline
Open it after you have drawn Mozambique 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 Mozambique is scored this way
Country Drawing does not compare your sketch to a picture of Mozambique. 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 Mozambique 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.
Mozambique by the numbers
Mozambique covers 801,590 km², which makes it the 34th largest of 190 countries in the game and the 16th largest in Africa. The capital is Maputo at about 18°S, 35°E, and it sits in Eastern Africa. It touches Malawi, South Africa, Eswatini, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and 100% of its area sits in one main landmass. The rest of the perimeter is water.
Next to Mozambique: 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 Mozambique |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mozambiquethis page | 801,590 km² | 30.4 m | Maputo | 1 | — |
 Malawi | 118,484 km² | 18.6 m | Lilongwe | 1 | 0.15× |
 South Africa | 1,221,037 km² | 58.6 m | Pretoria | 1 | 1.52× |
 Eswatini | 17,364 km² | 1.1 m | Lobamba | 1 | 0.02× |
 Tanzania | 945,087 km² | 58.0 m | Dodoma | 1 | 1.18× |
 Zambia | 752,612 km² | 17.9 m | Lusaka | 1 | 0.94× |
 Zimbabwe | 390,757 km² | 14.6 m | Harare | 1 | 0.49× |
Draw these next
Countries near Mozambique 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.
Mozambique drawing questions
How big is Mozambique?
Mozambique covers 801,590 km², ranking 34th of 190 countries here by land area and 16th in Africa. About 66% of the area of South Africa.
What is the capital of Mozambique?
The capital is Maputo at about 18°S, 35°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 Mozambique on a blank map.
Is Mozambique hard to draw?
It is rated hard, and carries more outline detail than 76% 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 Mozambique?
Mozambique shares a land border with Malawi, South Africa, Eswatini, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The remaining perimeter is coast, which is the part that usually costs points.