Draw Mauritania from Memory
Test your geography knowledge by drawing Mauritania from memory on a blank canvas. Shape comparison scoring is coming soon — practice Mauritania's outline in the meantime.
Related Countries in Africa
Why Mauritania Looks the Way It Does
Mauritania's capital was built rather than grown. When the French finally fixed the territory's limits in 1934 they still administered it from Saint-Louis in Senegal, and only in 1958 did work begin on Nouakchott, a planned city raised on ground that had been a fishing village. Everything about the outline follows from that late start: this was the part of the Sahara the colonial map got round to last, a territory of river valley and desert forts with no city of its own at all. The caravan towns of the Adrar — Chinguetti, Ouadane — had grown rich on salt and gold and on libraries of manuscript, but they sat far from the sea.
The borders are accordingly geometric. The northern line with what was Spanish Sahara runs straight to the Atlantic, splitting the peninsula at Cap Blanc so that Nouadhibou sits just north of the frontier; the eastern frontiers with Mali and the southern edge cut across empty reg and erg with no rivers worth following. Only the Senegal River, along the southern border, is a real feature, and its floodplain valley holds most of the population that the desert does not.
Even the interior is defined by absences: the Richat Structure, a ring of eroded rock visible from orbit, sits in the Adrar plateau, and the railway from the Zouérat iron mines to Nouadhibou runs trains more than two kilometers long across country with nothing else on it. Rough corners, one straight coast and one river at the bottom are all the memory needs to hold the shape.
Quick Facts: Mauritania
- Capital
- Nouakchott
- Continent
- Africa
- Area
- 1,030,700 km²
What is "Drawing Mauritania from Memory"?
Drawing Mauritania from memory means sketching Mauritania'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.
Mauritania sits in Africa and is rated ★★★ out of 4 for drawing difficulty — a trickier outline with more detail to remember. It connects to 3 neighboring country pages on this site. Border comparison scoring for Mauritania is coming soon — the shape tips below will get your mental map sharp before it lands.
Mauritania is a large, roughly rectangular country on Africa's far northwest coast. Most of it is empty Sahara, with a long, nearly straight Atlantic shoreline on the west and the Senegal River marking the southern border with Senegal.
How to Draw Mauritania from Memory
Step 01
Start with a broad, blocky rectangle that hugs the Atlantic on the west, its long coastline running almost ruler-straight from north to south. Mauritania is mostly empty desert, so keep the interior simple and featureless; that flat western shore is your main reference line for the whole block, and because the desert reaches right to the water, no coastal fringe complicates the edge.
Step 02
Draw the block's interior as a broad, empty expanse of Sahara with no major landmarks, so the outline does the work. The country is slightly narrower at the north and south than across the middle, and the land along the coast is flat, so keep the western shore smooth and the inland borders gently rounded, with Algeria and Mali to the east and Senegal below.
Step 03
Fix the outline with the inland borders: Algeria draws a long, slightly wavy line across the northeast, Mali runs beneath it to the east, and the Senegal River pins the southwest against Senegal. Keep the western coast straight and these land frontiers reasonably flat, and read every side as part of one solid slab of desert.
A broad, square-ish block of Atlantic desert, its long straight coast running down the west, pinned between the desert wastes of Algeria and the Senegal River.
How Mauritania Is Scored
When you hit Reveal & compare, your sketch is measured against Mauritania'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.
Automated scoring for Mauritania is coming soon. When it ships, drawing large and centered will be the fastest way to raise your score, because a small sketch overlaps less of the true border.
FAQ
- Which countries are Mauritania's neighbors?
- Mauritania connects to 3 neighboring country pages on this site: Algeria, Mali, and Senegal. Once you've drawn Mauritania, try a neighbor next — drawing two shapes side by side locks both into your mental map.
- How hard is it to draw Mauritania from memory?
- Mauritania is rated ★★★ out of 4 for drawing difficulty — a trickier outline with more detail to remember. Automated scoring is coming soon, so use the shape tips below to practice in the meantime.
- How is my Mauritania drawing scored?
- Once Mauritania's border data goes live, your sketch will be compared with the real border point by point. You'll get a 0–100 score built from Matched, Missed, and Extra, plus a clear overlay showing where you nailed it and where you drifted.
- Can I draw Mauritania on mobile?
- Yes — Mauritania works on desktop, tablet, and mobile. Draw with your finger on touchscreens; no app download is required and it runs directly in your browser.