World Chess Champions: The Complete List (1886-2026)

Since the first official match in 1886, only eighteen players have held the undisputed title of World Chess Champion. Here is the complete list, how each one won the title, and the story of how it has passed from hand to hand for 140 years.

The list

The founders: Steinitz and Lasker

Strong players had been called "world champion" informally for decades, but the first match billed as being for the world championship was played in the United States in 1886. Wilhelm Steinitz beat Johannes Zukertort and became the first official champion. Steinitz also changed how chess was played: he showed that small, lasting advantages - a better pawn structure, a weak square - could be built up and turned into a win, laying the foundations of positional chess.

Emanuel Lasker took the title from Steinitz in 1894 and kept it for 27 years, the longest reign in history. A doctor of mathematics and a friend of Albert Einstein, he was famous for his fighting spirit and practical, psychological play.

Capablanca, Alekhine and Euwe

The Cuban José Raúl Capablanca beat Lasker in Havana in 1921 without losing a game, and was considered nearly unbeatable for his clear, effortless style. Alexander Alekhine beat him in a long, hard match in Buenos Aires in 1927 - and the two never played a rematch.

Alekhine lost the title to the Dutch amateur and mathematics teacher Max Euwe in 1935, won it back in 1937, and died as champion in 1946. It is the only time a reigning champion has died holding the title.

FIDE takes over: the Soviet era

With no champion to beat, FIDE organised a match-tournament in 1948, won by Mikhail Botvinnik. From then on, FIDE ran the championship cycle - qualifying tournaments, a Candidates event, then a match against the champion - and Soviet players dominated it for almost fifty years.

Botvinnik lost the title twice, to Vasily Smyslov (1957) and the brilliant attacking player Mikhail Tal (1960), and won it back both times in return matches. He finally lost it in 1963 to Tigran Petrosian, a master of defence, who lost it in turn to Boris Spassky in 1969.

Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov

In 1972, in Reykjavík, the American Bobby Fischer beat Spassky in the most famous chess match ever played - the "Match of the Century", followed around the world at the height of the Cold War. Fischer then refused to defend his title under FIDE's conditions, and in 1975 Anatoly Karpov became champion without a match.

Karpov's rivalry with Garry Kasparov defined the 1980s. Their first match, in 1984-85, was stopped after five months with no result; Kasparov won the rematch in 1985 at 22, then the youngest champion ever. They played five world championship matches in all.

The split, and reunification

In 1993, Kasparov and his challenger Nigel Short broke away from FIDE and played their match separately. For thirteen years there were two world champions: the "classical" line (Kasparov, then Vladimir Kramnik, who beat Kasparov in London in 2000) and a series of FIDE champions.

The title was reunited in 2006, when Kramnik beat FIDE champion Veselin Topalov in Elista. In 2007, Viswanathan Anand won the title at a championship tournament in Mexico City, and then defended it in matches against Kramnik, Topalov and Boris Gelfand.

FIDE world champions during the split (1993-2006)

Carlsen, Ding and Gukesh

Magnus Carlsen took the title from Anand in Chennai in 2013 and defended it four times, against Anand, Sergey Karjakin, Fabiano Caruana and Ian Nepomniachtchi. He also set the highest rating in history, 2882. In 2022 he announced he would not defend the title again, and kept playing at the top of the rating list.

So in 2023, Ding Liren of China and Ian Nepomniachtchi played for the vacant title in Astana. It finished 7-7, and Ding won the rapid tiebreak to become China's first men's world champion.

In December 2024 in Singapore, India's Gukesh Dommaraju beat Ding 7½-6½, winning the final classical game. At 18, he is the youngest undisputed world champion in history.

What happens next

Gukesh defends his title against Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan in Geneva, from 24 November to 12 December 2026. If Sindarov wins, he becomes the 19th world champion. See our guide to the 2026 match.

The women's world champions

There is also a Women's World Championship, first held in 1927 and won by Vera Menchik, who kept it until her death in 1944. The current women's champion is Ju Wenjun of China, champion since 2018, who will next face India's Vaishali Rameshbabu, winner of the 2026 Women's Candidates.

Learn from the champions

Every champion was, above all, a superb tactician. You can try the moves strong players actually found in our guess-the-grandmaster-move puzzles, or step through a champion's game with the analysis board.