Europe · Southern Europe
How to draw San Marino from memory
San Marino 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
- 34 k
- Code
- SMR
Draw San Marino
Practice · draw from memory
San Marino
A four-step strategy for San Marino
- 01
Start by fixing the overall footprint. San Marino 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 San Marino
Nobody has submitted a score for San Marino yet. Draw it above and you are first on this board.
Full leaderboard →Quick facts
- Continent
- Europe
- Subregion
- Southern Europe
- Outline pieces
- 1
- Detail score
- 1.17
Three things that go wrong when people sketch San Marino
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 20% 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.
San Marino is close to square
Width against height comes out at 0.89 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
San Marino occupies a 390×440 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 San Marino
- Box on the canvas
- 390 × 440 units
- Width to height
- 0.89 : 1
- Separate landmasses
- 1
- Longest straight run
- 20% of the perimeter, along the west
- Coast against silhouette
- 1.19× the wrapping outline
Open it after you have drawn San Marino 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 San Marino is scored this way
Country Drawing does not compare your sketch to a picture of San Marino. 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 San Marino 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.
San Marino by the numbers
San Marino covers 61 km², which makes it the 186th largest of 190 countries in the game and the 42nd largest in Europe. The capital is City of San Marino at about 44°N, 12°E, and it sits in Southern Europe. It touches Italy, and 100% of its area sits in one main landmass. Being landlocked, there is no sea edge to help you orient it.
Next to San Marino: 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 San Marino |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Marinothis page | 61 km² | 34 k | City of San Marino | 1 | — |
 Italy | 301,336 km² | 60.3 m | Rome | 3 | 4940× |
Draw these next
Countries near San Marino 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 europe and label the whole region from memory — it shows you which neighbours you have never actually seen.
San Marino drawing questions
How big is San Marino?
San Marino covers 61 km², ranking 186th of 190 countries here by land area and 42nd in Europe. Small enough to lie inside a square roughly 7.8 km on a side.
What is the capital of San Marino?
The capital is City of San Marino at about 44°N, 12°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 San Marino on a blank map.
Is San Marino hard to draw?
It is rated easy, and carries more outline detail than 1% of the 190 borders in this game. The shape has to be placed as 1 landmass, with about 20% of the perimeter running dead straight along the west.
Which countries border San Marino?
San Marino shares a land border with Italy; about 20% of the outline runs dead straight along the west, because that frontier was drawn on a map rather than along a river.