Oceania · Melanesia
How to draw Papua New Guinea from memory
Papua New Guinea comes in 3 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
- 8.8 m
- Code
- PNG
Draw Papua New Guinea
Practice · draw from memory
Papua New Guinea
A four-step strategy for Papua New Guinea
- 01
Start by fixing the overall footprint. Papua New Guinea 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 2 pieces 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 Papua New Guinea
Nobody has submitted a score for Papua New Guinea yet. Draw it above and you are first on this board.
Full leaderboard →Quick facts
- Continent
- Oceania
- Subregion
- Melanesia
- Outline pieces
- 3
- Detail score
- 5.61
Three things that go wrong when people sketch Papua New Guinea
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.
10% of the country is not the mainland
The outline is made of 3 separate pieces, and the largest one carries only 90% 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.
The west edge is a ruler line, not a coast
About 10% 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 2.5× broader than either the northern or the southern edge. Place the two narrow ends early and the bulge between them cannot come out wrong.
Answer key: the real shape of Papua New Guinea
- Box on the canvas
- 440 × 236 units
- Width to height
- 1.86 : 1
- Separate landmasses
- 3
- Longest straight run
- 10% of the perimeter, along the west
- Coast against silhouette
- 1.44× the wrapping outline
Open it after you have drawn Papua New Guinea 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 Papua New Guinea is scored this way
Country Drawing does not compare your sketch to a picture of Papua New Guinea. 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 Papua New Guinea 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.
Papua New Guinea by the numbers
Papua New Guinea covers 462,840 km², which makes it the 53rd largest of 190 countries in the game and the 2nd largest in Oceania. The capital is Port Moresby at about 6°S, 147°E, and it sits in Melanesia. It touches Indonesia, and 90% of its area sits in one main landmass. The rest of the perimeter is water.
Next to Papua New Guinea: 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 Papua New Guinea |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Papua New Guineathis page | 462,840 km² | 8.8 m | Port Moresby | 3 | — |
 Indonesia | 1,904,569 km² | 270.6 m | Jakarta | 13 | 4.11× |
Draw these next
Countries near Papua New Guinea 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.
Papua New Guinea drawing questions
How big is Papua New Guinea?
Papua New Guinea covers 462,840 km², ranking 53rd of 190 countries here by land area and 2nd in Oceania. About 24% of the area of Indonesia.
What is the capital of Papua New Guinea?
The capital is Port Moresby at about 6°S, 147°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 Papua New Guinea on a blank map.
Is Papua New Guinea hard to draw?
It is rated hard, and carries more outline detail than 80% of the 190 borders in this game. The shape has to be placed as 3 landmasses, with about 10% of the perimeter running dead straight along the west.
Which countries border Papua New Guinea?
Papua New Guinea shares a land border with Indonesia. The remaining perimeter is coast, which is the part that usually costs points.