Checkerboard

A checkerboard is a board on which checkers is played. It is an 8×8 board and the 64 squares are of alternating color; usually, but not necessarily, black and white. The game of chess is played on a similar board.

The term checkerboard is also used to denote any rectangular square-tiled board. In this sense it refers not to a physical board as such but to the mathematical abstraction of such a board. The adjective checkered may refer to a pattern resembling a checkerboard, as in the checkered flag used to welcome the winning cars in a Formula One race, for instance.

The same board is used also for some other board games:

• Chess
• Makruk
• Arimaa
• Amazons
• Mak-yek
• Breakthrough
• Crossings
• Gounki
• Lines of Action
• Martian Chess
• Reversi
• Chapayev

In Native American communities and in some legal circles, checkerboard refers to the mix of property held in trust by the United States Department of Interior for various tribal governments intermingled with private, non-tribal property holdings within reservation boundaries.