Europe · Southern Europe
How to draw Vatican City from memory
Vatican City 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
- 825
- Code
- VAT
- Attempts
- 296
- Avg score
- 82
- Best
- 82
Draw Vatican City
Practice · draw from memory
Vatican City
A four-step strategy for Vatican City
- 01
Start by fixing the overall footprint. Vatican City 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.
IndigoBisonQuick facts
- Continent
- Europe
- Subregion
- Southern Europe
- Outline pieces
- 1
- Detail score
- 1.19
Three things that go wrong when people sketch Vatican City
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 east edge is a ruler line, not a coast
About 27% of the perimeter runs in one unbroken direction along the east. 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.
Vatican City is close to square
Width against height comes out at 1.00 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
Vatican City occupies a 440×440 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 Vatican City
- Box on the canvas
- 440 × 440 units
- Width to height
- 1.00 : 1
- Separate landmasses
- 1
- Longest straight run
- 27% of the perimeter, along the east
- Coast against silhouette
- 1.15× the wrapping outline
Open it after you have drawn Vatican City 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 Vatican City is scored this way
Country Drawing does not compare your sketch to a picture of Vatican City. 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 Vatican City 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.
Vatican City by the numbers
Vatican City covers 0.44 km², which makes it the 190th largest of 190 countries in the game and the 44th largest in Europe. The capital is the country itself at about 42°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 Vatican City: 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 Vatican City |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vatican Citythis page | 0.44 km² | 825 | Vatican City | 1 | — |
 Italy | 301,336 km² | 60.3 m | Rome | 3 | 684855× |
Draw these next
Countries near Vatican City 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.
Vatican City drawing questions
How big is Vatican City?
Vatican City covers 0.44 km², ranking 190th of 190 countries here by land area and 44th in Europe. Small enough to lie inside a square roughly 0.7 km on a side.
What is the capital of Vatican City?
Vatican City is a city-state: capital and country are the same settlement, which is why the outline the game asks for is a single tight loop.
Is Vatican City hard to draw?
It is rated easy, and carries more outline detail than 2% of the 190 borders in this game. The shape has to be placed as 1 landmass, with about 27% of the perimeter running dead straight along the east.
Which countries border Vatican City?
Vatican City shares a land border with Italy; about 27% of the outline runs dead straight along the east, because that frontier was drawn on a map rather than along a river.