Iraq is the country players discover they have never actually looked at — everyone knows the name, nobody knows the outline. It quietly turns out to be almost all straight lines: three of its borders were drawn with a ruler across empty desert, and only the mountainous northeast corner has any squiggle at all.
The shape at a glance
Iraq is a roughly pentagonal lump, a little taller than wide, tilted so its long axis runs northwest to southeast along the two rivers. The northeast corner pokes up into mountainous borders with Turkey and Iran, the west and southwest are long straight lines through the Syrian and Arabian deserts, and the bottom-right ends in a tiny stub of coastline at the head of the Persian Gulf. The whole thing reads as a wedge driving from the mountains down to the sea.
Step by step
- Sketch a tilted pentagon leaning to the right, slightly taller than it is wide.
- Sharpen the top-right corner into a point where the borders with Turkey and Iran meet in the Zagros mountains.
- Run the right edge southeast as a long, gently wavy line along Iran, ending at the marshy Shatt al-Arab corner.
- Add the tiny coastal stub at the bottom-right, squeezed beside Kuwait — Iraq barely touches the Gulf.
- Draw the bottom and left edges as two long ruler-straight desert lines meeting in a wide angle at the Jordan corner.
- Connect the left side back up to the mountain point with one more straight segment along Syria, with a slight kink where the Euphrates crosses in.
Mistakes that cost you points
- Giving Iraq a generous Gulf coastline — in reality Kuwait takes nearly all of it and Iraq gets a sliver.
- Rounding the desert borders instead of keeping them geometrically straight.
- Making the country fat and square when it is distinctly taller than wide.
- Drawing the northeast corner as a rounded cap rather than a genuine mountain point.
Place it on the map
Iraq sits between Syria and Jordan's straight-edged deserts on the west and Iran's long border on the east, with Turkey just touching its top and Saudi Arabia forming the entire bottom. It is the plug of land connecting the Gulf to the mountains.
Pro tip: Memorize it as 'three straight lines and a squiggle': Saudi line, Syrian line, Jordan line, then put every curve you draw into the Iranian border. That ratio alone will beat most of the field.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do you draw Iraq from memory?
- Start with the overall box — is Iraq wider than tall or the reverse — then place its signature feature first and build the rest of the outline around it. Finish with the coastline details, then compare against the real border in a free practice round to get a 0-100 score.
- How hard is it to draw Iraq?
- Iraq rates as medium difficulty. A lumpy, tilted shape with no famous silhouette, so the straight desert borders and the mountain corner carry the score.