India: four parts of an army
The oldest known ancestor of chess is called chaturanga, and it was played in northern India. The earliest reliable source that mentions the game is a text from around the year 625, but the game probably existed as early as the 6th century. The name means roughly “with four parts,” and it was a word for an army: foot soldiers, horsemen, elephants and chariots. There we have the pawns, the knights, the bishops' ancestors and the rooks.
Persia and the Arab world: shatranj
By around the year 600 the game had reached Persia, where it was called chatrang. When the Arabs conquered Persia in the 7th century, the game got the name shatranj and spread across the whole Arab world. That is also where words we use today come from. Chess and check come from the Persian shah, king, and checkmate from shāh māt, which roughly means that the king is helpless.
The game was slow. The queen's ancestor was an adviser (fers) who moved only one square diagonally, and the bishop's ancestor, the elephant (alfil), jumped exactly two squares diagonally. It could take a long time before the fighting really got going.
Europe: new pieces and a new queen
Through Spain and Sicily, chess came to Europe in the 10th century, and by around the year 1000 it had spread across large parts of the continent. Some of the best-known pieces from the Middle Ages, the Lewis chessmen, were found in 1831 on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland. They were made in the 12th century, probably in Norway, mostly of walrus ivory.
The great change came in Spain, in the Kingdom of Valencia, between 1475 and 1500. There the queen and the bishop got their present moves: the queen moves any distance in any direction, and the bishop any distance diagonally. The oldest known text with the new queen is Scachs d'amor, a poem in Catalan from Valencia, from around 1475. In 1497 Repetición de amores y arte de ajedrez by Luis Ramírez de Lucena came out in Salamanca. It is the oldest surviving printed book on how to play chess.
With a strong queen the game became faster and more dangerous. Suddenly a game could be decided in the opening, and players began to study how a game should begin. That is where opening theory has its roots.
Cafés, clubs and the first great tournament
In the 18th and 19th centuries chess was played in cafés in London, Paris and other cities. In Stockholm, too, people played café chess: the oldest known meeting place is Maja Lisa's coffee house, where people played in the 1780s. The first Swedish chess club, Stockholms Schack-Sällskap, was founded in 1835. It was short-lived, and today's Stockholms Schacksällskap dates from 1866.
In 1851 the Englishman Howard Staunton organized the first international chess tournament, in London. It was won by the German Adolf Anderssen. The same year, also in London, Anderssen played the game known today as the Immortal Game. You can replay it and other great games among our famous games.
The world champions
The first official world championship match was played in 1886 in the United States, between Wilhelm Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort. Steinitz won. Until 1946 the reigning champion decided for himself whom he would play. When Alexander Alekhine died as world champion in 1946, the world chess federation FIDE, founded in Paris in 1924, took over. FIDE's first world championship, a tournament in 1948, was won by Mikhail Botvinnik.
| World champion | Country | Years |
|---|---|---|
| Wilhelm Steinitz | Austria, later the United States | 1886–1894 |
| Emanuel Lasker | Germany | 1894–1921 |
| José Raúl Capablanca | Cuba | 1921–1927 |
| Alexander Alekhine | France (born in Russia) | 1927–1935, 1937–1946 |
| Max Euwe | Netherlands | 1935–1937 |
| Mikhail Botvinnik | Soviet Union | 1948–1957, 1958–1960, 1961–1963 |
| Vasily Smyslov | Soviet Union | 1957–1958 |
| Mikhail Tal | Soviet Union | 1960–1961 |
| Tigran Petrosian | Soviet Union | 1963–1969 |
| Boris Spassky | Soviet Union | 1969–1972 |
| Bobby Fischer | United States | 1972–1975 |
| Anatoly Karpov | Soviet Union | 1975–1985 |
| Garry Kasparov | Soviet Union, later Russia | 1985–2000 |
| Vladimir Kramnik | Russia | 2000–2007 |
| Viswanathan Anand | India | 2007–2013 |
| Magnus Carlsen | Norway | 2013–2023 |
| Ding Liren | China | 2023–2024 |
| Gukesh Dommaraju | India | 2024– |
A few things in the list need explaining. Anatoly Karpov became world champion in 1975 without playing: Bobby Fischer did not defend his title. In 1993 Garry Kasparov broke with FIDE, and until 2006 there were two world champions. FIDE named its own champions, first Karpov (1993–1999), while Kasparov and then Vladimir Kramnik held the classical title. In 2006 Kramnik won a match against FIDE's champion Veselin Topalov, and since then there has been one world champion again. Magnus Carlsen chose not to defend his title in 2023.
The current world champion, Gukesh Dommaraju of India, won the title in Singapore in December 2024, against Ding Liren. He was 18 years old, the youngest world champion so far. From November 25 to December 15, 2026, he defends the title against Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan in Geneva, according to FIDE.
There is also a world championship for women. The first women's world champion was Vera Menchik, who won the title in 1927 and held it until her death in 1944. Since 2018 the women's world champion has been Ju Wenjun, of China.
And the machines? In May 1997 world champion Garry Kasparov lost a six-game match to IBM's computer Deep Blue in New York. Today chess programs are far stronger than any human. Here on LaviChess you can try it yourself against our strongest computer: Lavi.
Chess in Sweden
The Swedish Chess Federation was founded in 1917. Its first president was Ludvig Collijn. He and his brother Gustaf put their own money into building up Swedish chess, and several international tournaments were held in Sweden.
In the 1930s Swedish chess had a golden age. With Gideon Ståhlberg, Gösta Stoltz and Erik Lundin, known as the Three Musketeers, Sweden took bronze at the 1933 Chess Olympiad in Folkestone and silver in 1935 in Warsaw. In 1937 the Olympiad was played in Stockholm.
After the war Sweden became a meeting place for the world's best. The very first Interzonal tournament, a step in qualifying for the world championship, was played in Saltsjöbaden in 1948 and won by David Bronstein. The next one was also played in Saltsjöbaden, in 1952, and won by Alexander Kotov. In Stockholm in 1962 the eighteen-year-old Bobby Fischer won the Interzonal without losing a single game. And when the World Junior Championship was decided in Stockholm in 1969, a young Anatoly Karpov won it, six years before he became world champion.
Gideon Ståhlberg was one of the 27 players who received FIDE's first grandmaster titles in 1950. He played in the Candidates tournaments of 1950 and 1953, and no Swede has come as far in the race for the world title since. Ulf Andersson became a grandmaster in 1972 and in the 1980s was among the highest-rated players in the world. Later he also became a grandmaster of correspondence chess, where the players never sit at the same board. Pia Cramling was the highest-rated woman player in the world in January 1984, and in 1992 she became the first Swedish woman to become a grandmaster.
Want to become part of history yourself? Start with the rules, or play a game right away.
Frequently asked questions
Where does chess come from?
From India. The oldest known form of chess, chaturanga, existed in northern India by the 7th century at the latest. From there the game went to Persia and the Arab world, and on to Europe.
How old is chess?
Chaturanga, the ancestor of chess, is known in India from the 6th or 7th century. The modern queen and bishop, and with them more or less today's game, came about in Spain between 1475 and 1500.
Who was the first world chess champion?
Wilhelm Steinitz. He won the first official world championship match, against Johannes Zukertort, in 1886 and was world champion until 1894.
Who is the world chess champion now?
Gukesh Dommaraju of India, since December 2024. In November and December 2026 he defends the title against Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan in Geneva.
What does the word chess mean?
It comes from the Persian shah, which means king. Checkmate comes from shāh māt, which roughly means that the king is helpless.
Sources
The facts on this page are based on these sources.
- History of chess (Wikipedia)
- Chaturanga (Wikipedia)
- Schack, chess (Swedish Wikipedia): the origin of the word
- Schackets historia, the history of chess (Swedish Wikipedia)
- Luis Ramírez de Lucena (Wikipedia)
- London 1851 chess tournament (Wikipedia)
- Immortal Game (Wikipedia)
- Världsmästerskapen i schack, the world chess championships (Swedish Wikipedia)
- World Chess Championship 2024 (Wikipedia)
- FIDE: Geneva to host FIDE World Championship Match 2026
- Vera Menchik (Wikipedia)
- Women's World Chess Championship (Wikipedia)
- Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov (Wikipedia)
- FIDE (Swedish Wikipedia)
- Sveriges Schackförbund, the Swedish Chess Federation (Swedish Wikipedia)
- 5th Chess Olympiad, Folkestone 1933 (Wikipedia)
- 6th Chess Olympiad, Warsaw 1935 (Wikipedia)
- 7th Chess Olympiad, Stockholm 1937 (Wikipedia)
- Interzonal tournament, Saltsjöbaden 1948 (Wikipedia)
- World Chess Championship 1954: the Saltsjöbaden Interzonal of 1952 (Wikipedia)
- World Chess Championship 1963: the Stockholm Interzonal of 1962 (Wikipedia)
- World Junior Chess Championship (Wikipedia)
- Grandmaster (chess) (Wikipedia)
- Gideon Ståhlberg (Swedish Wikipedia)
- Ulf Andersson (Wikipedia)
- Pia Cramling (Wikipedia)
Updated November 6, 2026