Every world chess champion

18 people have held the open world championship since 1886 and 17 have held the women’s since 1927. 20 of them are in FIDE’s current titled list, so their rating today sits beside the years they held the title.

World champions
Champion	Won in	Today
Wilhelm Steinitz	⁦1886⁩, ⁦1889⁩, ⁦1890⁩, ⁦1892⁩	not in the current list
Emanuel Lasker	⁦1894⁩, ⁦1896⁩, ⁦1907⁩, ⁦1908⁩, ⁦1910⁩	not in the current list
José Raúl Capablanca	⁦1921⁩	not in the current list
Alexander Alekhine	⁦1927⁩, ⁦1929⁩, ⁦1934⁩, ⁦1937⁩	not in the current list
Max Euwe	⁦1935⁩	not in the current list
Mikhail Botvinnik	⁦1948⁩, ⁦1951⁩, ⁦1954⁩, ⁦1958⁩, ⁦1961⁩	not in the current list
Vasily Smyslov	⁦1957⁩	not in the current list
Mikhail Tal	⁦1960⁩	not in the current list
Tigran Petrosian	⁦1963⁩, ⁦1966⁩	not in the current list
Boris Spassky	⁦1969⁩	not in the current list
Bobby Fischer	⁦1972⁩	not in the current list
Anatoly Karpov	⁦1975⁩, ⁦1978⁩, ⁦1981⁩	GM RUS ⁦2,617⁩
Garry Kasparov	⁦1985⁩, ⁦1986⁩, ⁦1987⁩, ⁦1990⁩, ⁦1993⁩, ⁦1995⁩	GM RUS ⁦2,812⁩
Vladimir Kramnik	⁦2000⁩, ⁦2004⁩, ⁦2006⁩	GM RUS ⁦2,753⁩
Viswanathan Anand	⁦2007⁩, ⁦2008⁩, ⁦2010⁩	GM IND ⁦2,739⁩
Magnus Carlsen	⁦2013⁩, ⁦2014⁩, ⁦2016⁩, ⁦2018⁩, ⁦2021⁩	GM NOR ⁦2,823⁩
Ding Liren	⁦2023⁩	GM CHN ⁦2,733⁩
Gukesh D	⁦2024⁩	GM IND ⁦2,703⁩

Women’s world champions
Champion	Held it	Today
Vera Menchik	⁦1927⁩–⁦1944⁩	not in the current list
Lyudmila Rudenko	⁦1950⁩–⁦1953⁩	not in the current list
Elisaveta Bykova	⁦1953⁩–⁦1956⁩	not in the current list
Olga Rubtsova	⁦1956⁩–⁦1958⁩	not in the current list
Elisaveta Bykova	⁦1958⁩–⁦1962⁩	not in the current list
Nona Gaprindashvili	⁦1962⁩–⁦1978⁩	GM GEO ⁦2,168⁩
Maia Chiburdanidze	⁦1978⁩–⁦1991⁩	GM GEO ⁦2,500⁩
Xie Jun	⁦1991⁩–⁦1996⁩	GM CHN ⁦2,574⁩
Susan Polgar	⁦1996⁩–⁦1999⁩	GM HUN ⁦2,577⁩
Xie Jun	⁦1999⁩–⁦2001⁩	GM CHN ⁦2,574⁩
Zhu Chen	⁦2001⁩–⁦2004⁩	GM QAT ⁦2,423⁩
Antoaneta Stefanova	⁦2004⁩–⁦2006⁩	GM BUL ⁦2,401⁩
Xu Yuhua	⁦2006⁩–⁦2008⁩	GM CHN ⁦2,465⁩
Alexandra Kosteniuk	⁦2008⁩–⁦2010⁩	GM SUI ⁦2,504⁩
Hou Yifan	⁦2010⁩–⁦2012⁩	GM CHN ⁦2,596⁩
Anna Ushenina	⁦2012⁩–⁦2013⁩	GM UKR ⁦2,414⁩
Hou Yifan	⁦2013⁩–⁦2015⁩	GM CHN ⁦2,596⁩
Mariya Muzychuk	⁦2015⁩–⁦2016⁩	GM UKR ⁦2,463⁩
Hou Yifan	⁦2016⁩–⁦2017⁩	GM CHN ⁦2,596⁩
Tan Zhongyi	⁦2017⁩–⁦2018⁩	GM CHN ⁦2,520⁩
Ju Wenjun	⁦2018⁩–present	GM CHN ⁦2,553⁩

The years the title was split

Between 1993 and 2006 there were two world championships. Kasparov broke away from FIDE and the classical line ran through him and then Kramnik, while FIDE ran its own knockout events. This list follows the classical line, because that is the lineage the source records — which means Alexander Khalifman, Ruslan Ponomariov, Rustam Kasimdzhanov and Veselin Topalov are not on it, and each of them was a world champion by FIDE’s reckoning. Kramnik beat Topalov in 2006 and the title has been one thing since.

Where this comes from

The open championship is taken from Wikidata, which records each edition and its winner. The women’s championship is barely in Wikidata — eight of forty-four editions name a winner — so that list comes from Wikipedia’s own table of champions. Both are then matched by name against FIDE’s titled list, which is where the title, federation and rating in the last column come from. A champion who is not in that list carries no rating rather than a zero: four of the women’s champions died before the modern rating list existed. One qualifier event filed under the championship in Wikidata is dropped, because winning the right to play for the title is not the same as holding it.

Champions retrieved 2026-08-22. Ratings from FIDE’s monthly list.