Oceania · Australia and New Zealand
How to draw New Zealand from memory
New Zealand comes in 2 separate pieces on the map. The main body is roughly as wide as it is tall; sketch that first, then place the smaller pieces relative to it. 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
- 4.9 m
- Code
- NZL
Draw New Zealand
Practice · draw from memory
New Zealand
A four-step strategy for New Zealand
- 01
Start by fixing the overall footprint. New Zealand 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
Finish the main landmass completely, then add the remaining 1 piece as separate strokes. Scoring counts total covered area, so an unclosed island can hurt more than a missing one.
- 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 New Zealand
Nobody has submitted a score for New Zealand yet. Draw it above and you are first on this board.
Full leaderboard →Quick facts
- Continent
- Oceania
- Subregion
- Australia and New Zealand
- Outline pieces
- 2
- Detail score
- 9.34
Three things that go wrong when people sketch New Zealand
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.
40% of the country is not the mainland
The outline is made of 2 separate pieces, and the largest one carries only 61% of the area. Sketched without the rest, the shape is short by that much even when the mainland is perfect — place the outlying piece first, then draw the mainland around it.
New Zealand is taller than it is wide
The finished outline holds a ratio of about 0.75 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.
Most of the mass sits to the south
The area centre is well off the middle of the outline, and the thin side is the part people extend too early. Draw the heavy side first and let the tail grow out of it.
Answer key: the real shape of New Zealand
- Box on the canvas
- 329 × 440 units
- Width to height
- 0.75 : 1
- Separate landmasses
- 2
- Longest straight run
- Nothing over 8% of the perimeter
- Coast against silhouette
- 1.46× the wrapping outline
Open it after you have drawn New Zealand 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 New Zealand is scored this way
Country Drawing does not compare your sketch to a picture of New Zealand. 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 New Zealand 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.
New Zealand by the numbers
New Zealand covers 270,467 km², which makes it the 74th largest of 190 countries in the game and the 3rd largest in Oceania. The capital is Wellington at about 41°S, 174°E, and it sits in Australia and New Zealand. It shares no land border at all, so every metre of the outline you have to draw is coastline.
Next to New Zealand: regional peers
Size is what the outline has to fill, so comparing countries of the same region side by side is the fastest way to get the proportions into your head before you draw.
| Country | Area | Population | Capital | Pieces | vs New Zealand |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Zealandthis page | 270,467 km² | 4.9 m | Wellington | 2 | — |
 Australia | 7,692,024 km² | 25.4 m | Canberra | 1 | 28× |
 Fiji | 18,272 km² | 890 k | Suva | 4 | 0.07× |
 Kiribati | 811 km² | 118 k | South Tarawa | 14 | <0.01× |
 Marshall Islands | 181 km² | 59 k | Majuro | 5 | <0.01× |
 Micronesia | 702 km² | 114 k | Palikir | 5 | <0.01× |
 Nauru | 21 km² | 13 k | Yaren | 1 | <0.01× |
 Palau | 459 km² | 18 k | Ngerulmud | 2 | <0.01× |
 Papua New Guinea | 462,840 km² | 8.8 m | Port Moresby | 3 | 1.71× |
Draw these next
Countries near New Zealand 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 the world and label the whole region from memory — it shows you which neighbours you have never actually seen.
New Zealand drawing questions
How big is New Zealand?
New Zealand covers 270,467 km², ranking 74th of 190 countries here by land area and 3rd in Oceania. About 49% of the area of France.
What is the capital of New Zealand?
The capital is Wellington at about 41°S, 174°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 New Zealand on a blank map.
Is New Zealand hard to draw?
It is rated hard, and carries more outline detail than 93% of the 190 borders in this game. The shape has to be placed as 2 landmasses, with no straight edge longer than 8% of the perimeter to anchor it.
Does New Zealand border any country?
New Zealand has no land borders: every metre of its outline is coastline, which is why it rates as hard.