Draw Brazil from Memory
Test your geography knowledge by drawing Brazil from memory. Score 0–100 based on how accurately you sketch Brazil's distinctive shape.
Related Countries in South America
Why Brazil Looks the Way It Does
A papal line drawn in 1494 gave Portugal, on paper, a sliver: the Treaty of Tordesillas ran a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands and awarded Portugal everything east of it, which on the South American map amounted to a modest coastal strip around the northeastern bulge. Spain took the rest of the continent. The line mattered less as a boundary than as a starting position, because it was signed by people who had no idea where the meridian fell on the ground, and the Portuguese who did go inland ignored it entirely.
The pushing west was done by bandeirantes, armed expeditions out of São Paulo in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that hunted enslaved Indigenous labor and gold, crossing the Tordesillas meridian a generation before anyone drew it accurately. When Portugal and Spain finally negotiated the Treaty of Madrid in 1750, both sides accepted the obvious principle: possession, not the old papal geometry, would decide the map. Every later adjustment followed the same logic — the rubber boom carried Brazilian claims into the upper Amazon, and in 1903 Brazil bought Acre outright from Bolivia. The borders therefore trace a century of occupation rather than a single act of division: Brazil now touches ten of the twelve other South American states, missing only Chile and Ecuador, and holds most of the Amazon basin.
The coast does the rest. The Portuguese arrived at the bulge, and the bulge remains the shape's signature: a great rounded shoulder at Cabo Branco near Natal, the nearest point of the continent to Africa, from which the shoreline runs in one long arc south to the Río de la Plata. When sketching it later, the honest sequence is treaty first, then treaty eroded — a rounded coastal mass, and a western edge that wanders wherever bandeirantes and rubber tappers happened to stop.
Quick Facts: Brazil
What is "Drawing Brazil from Memory"?
Drawing Brazil from memory means sketching Brazil's border on a blank canvas without looking at a map. Focus on the country's distinctive features and overall shape — that's what pushes your accuracy score up.
Brazil sits in South America and is rated ★★ out of 4 for drawing difficulty — a manageable, compact shape for a first try. It connects to 9 neighboring country pages on this site. When you hit Reveal, your sketch is scored 0–100 against the real border, so every attempt teaches you something about the outline.
Brazil fills nearly half of South America, a broad, bulging mass that pushes far out into the Atlantic — most recognizable by its northeastern hump where the coast juts toward Africa and the vast Amazon basin that spreads across its northern interior.
How to Draw Brazil from Memory
Step 01
Brazil is the giant of South America, filling nearly half the continent with a shape that's broad, heavy, and unmistakable. Start with that overall mass: wide and bulging in the north and northeast, narrowing toward the south, and covering most of the eastern half of the continent. Get the proportions big — it dwarfs every neighbor.
Step 02
Brazil bulges far out into the Atlantic in the northeast, a great shoulder of land that comes closer to Africa than any other point in the continent. That northeastern hump — the country's most famous feature — juts like a rounded elbow toward the ocean, while the coastline below it runs long and relatively straight down the east side.
Step 03
Two landmarks anchor the whole drawing: the northeastern hump on the coast, and the vast Amazon basin spread across the north, which you can sketch as a broad interior plain reaching west toward the Andes. Nine countries wrap around Brazil's western edge, so let those borders run in gentle, irregular curves rather than sharp angles.
A great hump of land bulging into the Atlantic, a wide river basin in the belly, and nine neighbors crowding the west.
How Brazil Is Scored
When you hit Reveal & compare, your sketch is measured against Brazil's real border, point by point, in the same canvas space. Three numbers come back:
Matched — the share of the real border your drawing covered. 100% means you traced every part of the outline.
Extra — how much of your drawing fell outside the true border. This catches sketches that are too big, mispositioned, or drifting off.
Missed — the border you didn't reach, the flip side of Matched.
The three combine into a single 0–100 accuracy score. The rating names give you a target: 80+ is Cartographer, 60+ is Border patrol, 40+ is Getting there, and below 40 is Try again.
Drawing large and roughly centered is the single fastest way to raise your score — a small sketch tucked in a corner overlaps less of the true border, so it scores lower.
FAQ
- Which countries are Brazil's neighbors?
- Brazil connects to 9 neighboring country pages on this site: Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay. Once you've drawn Brazil, try a neighbor next — drawing two shapes side by side locks both into your mental map.
- How hard is it to draw Brazil from memory?
- Brazil is rated ★★ out of 4 for drawing difficulty — a manageable, compact shape for a first try. You can score your attempts immediately and watch your accuracy climb with practice.
- How is my Brazil drawing scored?
- Your sketch is compared with Brazil's real border, point by point, in the same canvas space. Matched is the share of the border you covered, Extra is how much of your drawing fell outside it, and Missed is the border you didn't reach. The three combine into a single 0–100 accuracy score.
- Can I draw Brazil on mobile?
- Yes — Brazil works on desktop, tablet, and mobile. Draw with your finger on touchscreens; no app download is required and it runs directly in your browser.