Era of Menchik The Women's World Chess Championship was established by
FIDE in 1927. FIDE wanted to gain control of the absolute World Championship and thought establishing a Women's World Championship they had already controlled would help them achieve that. They hosted a women's round-robin tournament as a side event at the
Chess Olympiad and weeks after the tournament ended, decided to retroactively declare the winner of the tournament,
Vera Menchik, to be the inaugural Women's World Chess Champion. Menchik remained champion until her death, defending the title seven additional times. Throughout Menchik's reign, the world championship was primarily contested in tournaments, in contrast to the absolute World Chess Championship that used a match format and a challenge system. The lone exception was a privately organized
1937 match between Menchik and
Sonja Graf, which was formally recognized by FIDE. The Women's World Championship continued to be held in conjunction with the Chess Olympiad. As a result, it was held on a more regular basis than the absolute World Championship that was only held sporadically whenever there was a challenger.
Dominance of the Soviet Union players (1950–1991) vs.
Nana Alexandria Menchik died, still champion, in 1944 when her house in
Clapham was bombed by a
V-1 flying bomb. The next championship was another
round-robin tournament in 1949–50 and was won by
Lyudmila Rudenko. Thereafter a system similar to that of the overall championship was established, with a cycle of Candidates events (and later Interzonals) to pick a challenger to face the reigning champion. The first such Candidates tournament was held in Moscow, 1952.
Elisaveta Bykova won and proceeded to defeat Rudenko with seven wins, five losses, and two
draws to become the third champion. The next Candidates tournament was won by
Olga Rubtsova. Instead of directly playing Bykova, however, FIDE decided that the championship should be held between the three top players in the world. Rubtsova won at Moscow in 1956, one-half point ahead of Bykova, who finished five points ahead of Rudenko. Bykova regained the title in 1958 and defended it against
Kira Zvorykina, winner of a Candidates tournament, in 1959. The fourth Candidates tournament was held in 1961 in
Vrnjacka Banja, and was utterly dominated by
Nona Gaprindashvili of
Georgia, who won with ten wins, zero losses, and six draws. She then decisively defeated Bykova with seven wins, no losses, and four draws in Moscow, 1962 to become champion. Gaprindashvili defended her title against
Alla Kushnir of Russia at
Riga 1965 and
Tbilisi/Moscow 1969. In 1972, FIDE introduced the same system for the women's championship as with the overall championship: a series of Interzonal tournaments, followed by the Candidates matches. Kushnir won again, only to be defeated by Gaprindashvili at Riga 1972. Gaprindashvili defended the title one last time against
Nana Alexandria of Georgia at
Pitsunda/Tbilisi 1975. In 1976–1978 Candidates cycle, 17-year-old
Maya Chiburdanidze of Georgia ended up the surprise star, defeating Nana Alexandria,
Elena Akhmilovskaya, and Alla Kushnir to face Gaprindashvili in the 1978 finals at Tbilisi. Chiburdanidze soundly defeated Gaprindashvili, marking the end of one Georgian's domination and the beginning of another's. Chiburdanidze defended her title against Alexandria at
Borjomi/Tbilisi 1981 and
Irina Levitina at
Volgograd 1984. Following this, FIDE reintroduced the Candidates tournament system. Akhmilovskaya, who had earlier lost to Chiburdanidze in the Candidates matches, won the tournament but was still defeated by Chiburdanidze at Sofia 1986. Chiburdanidze's final title defense came against
Nana Ioseliani at
Telavi 1988.
Post-Soviet era (1991–2010) Chiburdanidze's domination ended in
Manila 1991, where the young
Chinese star
Xie Jun defeated her, after finishing second to the still-active Gaprindashvili in an Interzonal, tying with
Alisa Marić in the Candidates tournament, and then beating Marić in a tie-breaker match. Thus, Soviet domination in the women's section ended after 41 years. It was during this time that the three Polgar sisters
Susan (also known as Zsuzsa),
Sofia (Zsófia), and
Judit emerged as dominant players. However they tended to compete in open tournaments, avoiding the women's championship. Susan Polgar eventually changed her policy. She won the 1992 Candidates tournament in
Shanghai. The Candidates final—an eight-game match between the top two finishers in the tournament—was a drawn match between Polgar and Ioseliani, even after two tiebreaks. The match was decided by a lottery, which Ioseliani won. Ioseliani went on to be crushed by Xie Jun (8½–2½) in the championship at
Monaco 1993. The next cycle was dominated by Polgar. She tied with Chiburdanidze in the Candidates tournament, defeated her easily in the match (5½–1½), and then decisively defeated Xie Jun (8½–4½) in
Jaén 1996 for the championship. In 1997, Russian
Alisa Galliamova and Chinese Xie Jun finished first and second, but Galliamova refused to play the final match entirely in China. FIDE eventually awarded the match to Xie Jun by default. However, by the time all these delays were sorted out, Polgar had given birth to her first child. She requested that the match be postponed. FIDE refused, and eventually set up the championship to be between Galliamova and Xie Jun. The championship was held in
Kazan,
Tatarstan and
Shenyang, China, and Xie Jun won with five wins, three losses, and seven draws. In 2000 a
knock-out event, similar to the FIDE overall title and held alongside it, was the new format of the women's world championship. It was won by Xie Jun. In 2001 a similar event determined the champion,
Zhu Chen. Another knock-out, this one held separately from the overall championship, in
Elista, the capital of the Russian republic of
Kalmykia (of which FIDE President
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is president), from May 21 to June 8, 2004, produced
Bulgarian
Antoaneta Stefanova as champion. As with Polgar five years prior, Zhu Chen did not participate due to pregnancy. In 2006 the title returned to China. The new champion
Xu Yuhua was pregnant during the championship. In 2008, the title went to Russian grandmaster
Alexandra Kosteniuk, who, in the final, beat Chinese prodigy
Hou Yifan 2½–1½, then aged 14 (see
Women's World Chess Championship 2008). In 2010 the title returned to China once again.
Hou Yifan, the runner-up in the previous championship, became the youngest ever women's world champion at the age of 16. She beat her compatriot WGM
Ruan Lufei 2–2 (classic) 3–1 (rapid playoffs).
Yearly tournaments (2010–2018) Beginning from 2010, the Women's World Chess Championship would be held annually in alternating formats. In even years a 64-player
knockout system would be used, in the odd years a classical match featuring only two players would be held. The 2011 edition was between the 2010 champion
Hou Yifan and the winner of the
FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2009–2011. Since
Hou Yifan won the Grand Prix, her challenger was the runner-up, Koneru Humpy. In 2011
Hou Yifan successfully defended her women's world champion title in the
Women's World Chess Championship 2011 in Tirana, Albania against
Koneru Humpy. Hou won three games and drew five in the ten-game match, winning the title with two games to spare.
Hou Yifan was knocked-out in the second round in
Women's World Chess Championship 2012, which was played in
Khanty Mansiysk.
Anna Ushenina, seeded 30th in the tournament, won the final against
Antoaneta Stefanova 3½–2½. The
Women's World Chess Championship 2013 was a match over 10 games between defending champion Anna Ushenina and Hou Yifan who had won the
FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2011–2012. After seven of ten games Hou Yifan won the match 5.5 to 1.5 to retake the title. After Hou declined to defend her title at the
Women's World Chess Championship 2015, the title was won by
Mariya Muzychuk, who defeated
Natalia Pogonina in the final. Hou defeated Muzychuk 6–3 to reclaim the
Women's World Chess Championship 2016 title for her 4th championship in March 2016. The following year
Tan Zhongyi defeated
Anna Muzychuk for the title at the
Women's World Chess Championship 2017. Tan lost the title defending it against
Ju Wenjun (with Hou not participating at this event) at the
Women's World Chess Championship Match 2018.
Return to match-only format Due to various hosting and timing issues, the championships had varied from their intended annual calendar in recent years. FIDE held a
second world championship in 2018 in order to get back on schedule. After the 2018 championship tournament the new FIDE president
Arkady Dvorkovich announced the format would be changed back to matches only. He said the many different champions the yearly system created discredited the championship title as a whole.
Aleksandra Goryachkina won the
Candidates tournament, held in June 2019, to challenge for the World Championship. Ju Wenjun retained her title in the
2020 Championship. Ju retained her title in the
2023 championship against
Lei Tingjie and in the
2025 championship against
Tan Zhongyi. ==List of Women's World Chess Champions==