Africa · Eastern Africa
How to draw Rwanda from memory
Rwanda 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 is simple by world standards, which makes it a good place to build confidence — and also means a low score here has nowhere to hide.
- Difficulty
- easy
- Population
- 12.6 m
- Code
- RWA
Draw Rwanda
Practice · draw from memory
Rwanda
A four-step strategy for Rwanda
- 01
Start by fixing the overall footprint. Rwanda 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.
Top scores for Rwanda
Nobody has submitted a score for Rwanda 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
- 1.79
Three things that go wrong when people sketch Rwanda
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.
It narrows sharply toward the north
The outline is 2.8× wider at the bottom of the shape than at the top, so the broad part belongs in the south. Most failed sketches here put the wide section at the wrong end.
Rwanda is close to square
Width against height comes out at 1.16 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.
Close the loop before adding detail
Rwanda occupies a 440×381 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 Rwanda
- Box on the canvas
- 440 × 381 units
- Width to height
- 1.16 : 1
- Separate landmasses
- 1
- Longest straight run
- Nothing over 8% of the perimeter
- Coast against silhouette
- 1.18× the wrapping outline
Open it after you have drawn Rwanda 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 Rwanda is scored this way
Country Drawing does not compare your sketch to a picture of Rwanda. 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 Rwanda 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.
Rwanda by the numbers
Rwanda covers 26,338 km², which makes it the 144th largest of 190 countries in the game and the 47th largest in Africa. The capital is Kigali at about 2°S, 30°E, and it sits in Eastern Africa. It touches Burundi, DR Congo, Tanzania and Uganda, and 100% of its area sits in one main landmass. Being landlocked, there is no sea edge to help you orient it.
Next to Rwanda: 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 Rwanda |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rwandathis page | 26,338 km² | 12.6 m | Kigali | 1 | — |
 Burundi | 27,834 km² | 11.5 m | Gitega | 1 | 1.06× |
 DR Congo | 2,344,858 km² | 86.8 m | Kinshasa | 1 | 89× |
 Tanzania | 945,087 km² | 58.0 m | Dodoma | 1 | 36× |
 Uganda | 241,550 km² | 44.3 m | Kampala | 1 | 9.17× |
Draw these next
Countries near Rwanda 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.
Rwanda drawing questions
How big is Rwanda?
Rwanda covers 26,338 km², ranking 144th of 190 countries here by land area and 47th in Africa. Small enough to lie inside a square roughly 162.3 km on a side.
What is the capital of Rwanda?
The capital is Kigali at about 2°S, 30°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 Rwanda on a blank map.
Is Rwanda hard to draw?
It is rated easy, and carries more outline detail than 16% 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 Rwanda?
Rwanda shares a land border with Burundi, DR Congo, Tanzania and Uganda, so the entire outline is made of these frontiers.