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Chess Queen Moves and History (Complete Guide)
The chess queen is now the most powerful piece on the board, but it wasn't always part of the game. For a long stretch of chess history there was no queen at all, and its rise mirrors the changing place of women in society over the centuries. We'll start with how the chess queen moves today, then look at where it actually came from.
How Does the Queen Move in Chess?
The queen moves horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, as many squares as it wants in a single move. Take a white queen sitting on d5. From there it can reach every one of the squares shown below in a single move.
The queen can't jump over its own pieces or the opponent's, the same restriction that applies to the rook and the bishop. And like those two pieces, it captures by landing on the square an enemy piece or pawn occupies and removing that piece from the board. When the piece it attacks is the enemy king, that attack is what chess calls check.
If you're not familiar yet with the rules of chess, our full chess rules guide covers everything you need.
Why Is the Queen the Strongest Piece on the Board? <!-- no FR counterpart -->
The queen is so powerful simply because it combines the reach of a rook with the reach of a bishop. No other piece covers that much ground in one move. That's also why players commonly count it as worth about nine pawns when judging material on the board, more than a rook and a bishop or knight put together, and well above any other single piece.
That strength cuts both ways. Because it's worth so much, losing your queen for anything less is usually close to fatal for your chances, and because it moves everywhere, it's an easy piece to expose to an unexpected attack if you're not paying attention.
A Short History of the Chess Queen
Chess was born in India, most likely around the 6th century CE, in the form of a game called chaturanga. Four kinds of pieces made up the army back then, and there was no queen anywhere on the board. Women, at the time, were largely seen as inferior to men, and that view was baked into the game itself.
Look at Pandora in Greek mythology or at Eve in the Christian tradition, and the first major female figures in Western culture don't come off looking particularly good, to put it mildly. That image problem is part of why artists later leaned so heavily on Mary to restore some standing to women. Women only started taking on real influence at the start of the Middle Ages, especially as queens and as advisors to kings, and that is exactly when a queen piece first shows up in chess.
A carved chess set from the 12th century, dug up on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, off the northwest coast of Scotland, is one of the best pieces of evidence we have. Most of the Lewis Chessmen sit in the British Museum today, with eleven more at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, and the set is well enough known that the British Museum picked it for A History of the World in 100 Objects, the run through world history it put together with the BBC.
How the Queen Gained Its Modern Move
The queen kept evolving from there. By the 15th century, the age of courtly love, the piece was no longer tied down next to the king and its movement had opened up completely. It could now cross the whole board in a straight line or on the diagonal. Chess was hugely popular by this point too, and not just as a stand-in for war. People also saw it as a way to work out how to capture the most powerful piece on the board, the queen, which lines up rather neatly with the courtship rituals of the same era. Men were expected to go to real lengths, and show real imagination, to win the heart of the woman they loved.
That's the story of how the chess queen got here, from an army with no queen at all to the strongest piece on the board.
Chess Queen FAQ <!-- no FR counterpart -->
How Does the Queen Move in Chess?
The queen moves horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, any number of open squares in a single move, the same way a rook and a bishop move combined.
What Are the Legal Chess Queen Moves?
Chess queen moves cover any rank, file, or diagonal, for as many open squares as the queen wants in a single move, the same combined reach as a rook and a bishop.
Your Move
That's the queen, then. If you're just getting started, our complete guide on how to play chess walks you through every piece and every rule from scratch.