The Atlas
People have played board games on every inhabited continent for thousands of years. The same few ideas — chase, capture, race, gather — turn up again and again in wonderfully different shapes. Here is where each game you can play comes from, and roughly when. (We show a respectful symbol for each place, never a flag — borders and flags change, but the games endure.)
Alquerque
Ancient Near East, later medieval Iberia
played by ~1400 BCE; carved into temple roofs in Egypt
The ancient ancestor of checkers: jump your way across a 5×5 web of lines.
Brandubh (Celtic tafl)
Early-medieval Ireland & the wider Norse world (the tafl family)
played across northern Europe ~400–1100 CE
An uneven siege: the King runs for a corner while the attackers try to trap him.
Oware
The Akan people of West Africa (a game of the mancala family)
a living tradition, centuries old and still played daily
Sow seeds around the board and gather them into your store — a race of counting and timing.
Fanorona
Madagascar (the national board game of the Malagasy people)
documented since the 1600s; still played across the island today
Sweep a whole line of stones off the board by stepping toward them — or away from them.
Congkak
Maritime Southeast Asia (Malay & Indonesian mancala)
a living tradition across the archipelago
Sow shells around two long rows — chain lap after lap and sweep the pit across from you.
The Royal Game of Ur
Ancient Mesopotamia (the city of Ur, in what is now Iraq)
played ~2600 BCE — one of the oldest board games we can still play
Race seven pieces down a lucky track — land on a rosette to throw again, or send an enemy back to the start.
Senet
Ancient Egypt (played from the pharaohs to ordinary households)
played ~3100 BCE; its exact rules are lost — this is one scholarly reconstruction
Snake five pieces down thirty squares, swapping past your rival and dodging the House of Water.
Cờ Gánh
Vietnam — Đà Nẵng & Quảng Nam ("cờ gánh", carrying chess)
a living village tradition, played on a scratched 5×5 grid of lines
Nobody leaves the board — carry a rival between two of yours and it switches to your side.
Cờ Chân Chó
Vietnam ("cờ chân chó" / "cờ chó", dog's-paw chess) — a schoolyard folk game
a traditional children's pastime, drawn in dirt or chalk
No captures — just box your rival in. Trap all their tokens and you win.
Ô Ăn Quan
Vietnam ("ô ăn quan", mandarin square capturing) — a folk mancala
a centuries-old sidewalk game, scratched into stone or drawn in chalk
Sow your pebbles round the board and snap up a pit that sits just past an empty one — grab a big Quan for a mountain of stones.
Makruk
Thailand & mainland Southeast Asia (Makruk, "chess" — a living cousin of the ancient game)
descended from the medieval game that also gave rise to chess; still the popular game of Thailand today
A chess cousin from Thailand: the pieces start closer, the queen is shy, and pawns turn into queens on their own square.
Cờ Cá Ngựa
Vietnam (Cờ Cá Ngựa, "horse chess" — the Vietnamese cousin of the pachisi/ludo race-game family)
a modern Vietnamese folk game in the ancient cross-and-circuit race tradition that spread from South Asia
A Vietnamese horse race: roll a six to gallop a horse out of the stable, race it around the cross, then home — but a rival landing on you sends you all the way back.
The atlas is complete — every documented world classic on our list has arrived, from the checkers-ancestor Alquerque to Thailand's chess-cousin Makruk. A brand-new game can always be added later: on this engine a game is just a new description of a board, never a whole new program.