Africa · Western Africa
How to draw The Gambia from memory
The Gambia is dramatically wider than it is tall, and that ratio is where most attempts fail. People instinctively draw it too square, which caps the score before any coastline detail matters. 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
- 2.3 m
- Code
- GMB
Draw The Gambia
Practice · draw from memory
The Gambia
A four-step strategy for The Gambia
- 01
Draw a wide, shallow guide box in your head first — The Gambia is much wider than tall, and getting that ratio right is worth more than any single coastline.
- 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 The Gambia
Nobody has submitted a score for The Gambia yet. Draw it above and you are first on this board.
Full leaderboard →Quick facts
- Continent
- Africa
- Subregion
- Western Africa
- Outline pieces
- 1
- Detail score
- 8.36
Three things that go wrong when people sketch The Gambia
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 north edge is a ruler line, not a coast
About 11% of the perimeter runs in one unbroken direction along the north. 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.
It narrows sharply toward the south
Measured across, the outline is 4.2× 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.
The Gambia is wider than it is tall
The finished outline holds a ratio of about 3.90 to 1, a horizontal 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 The Gambia
- Box on the canvas
- 440 × 113 units
- Width to height
- 3.90 : 1
- Separate landmasses
- 1
- Longest straight run
- 11% of the perimeter, along the north
- Coast against silhouette
- 1.54× the wrapping outline
Open it after you have drawn The Gambia 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 The Gambia is scored this way
Country Drawing does not compare your sketch to a picture of The Gambia. 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 The Gambia 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.
The Gambia by the numbers
The Gambia covers 10,689 km², which makes it the 159th largest of 190 countries in the game and the 50th largest in Africa. The capital is Banjul at about 13°N, 17°W, and it sits in Western Africa. It touches Senegal, and 100% of its area sits in one main landmass. The rest of the perimeter is water.
Next to The Gambia: 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 The Gambia |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Gambiathis page | 10,689 km² | 2.3 m | Banjul | 1 | — |
 Senegal | 196,722 km² | 16.3 m | Dakar | 1 | 18× |
Draw these next
Countries near The Gambia 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.
The Gambia drawing questions
How big is The Gambia?
The Gambia covers 10,689 km², ranking 159th of 190 countries here by land area and 50th in Africa. About 5% of the area of Senegal.
What is the capital of The Gambia?
The capital is Banjul at about 13°N, 17°W. 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 The Gambia on a blank map.
Is The Gambia hard to draw?
It is rated hard, and carries more outline detail than 90% of the 190 borders in this game. The shape has to be placed as 1 landmass, with about 11% of the perimeter running dead straight along the north.
Which countries border The Gambia?
The Gambia shares a land border with Senegal. The remaining perimeter is coast, which is the part that usually costs points.