How is xiangqi different from janggi, Korean chess?
These answers restate the rules implemented by our open-source engine, which follows the WXF laws and is regression-tested against the official 110-diagram repetition casebook. Where an answer refers to a specific position, that position lives on the linked reference page, where the build verifies it against the engine before publishing.
Direct answer
Janggi is Korean chess, and it shares xiangqi's board layout, palace and general-plus-advisor defence, but it diverged in several concrete ways: janggi's cannon cannot capture another cannon or jump over one, its general and advisors can move along the palace diagonals, and there is no river restriction on elephants or soldiers.
Shared ancestry, separate development
Both games clearly come from the same broader East Asian chess family, with a river-and-palace board, a general confined to a small zone, and a cannon-type piece that captures by jumping a screen. That much overlap is too specific to be coincidence. But janggi took its own path from there, most visibly in how its cannon behaves and in how freely its elephant and soldiers can range compared to xiangqi's.
The practical differences a xiangqi player would notice first
A janggi board has no river line painted across it, elephants and soldiers are not held back the way xiangqi's are, and the general can slide along diagonal lines within the palace, which is not available in xiangqi at all. A janggi cannon also cannot fire over another cannon or capture one, a restriction xiangqi's cannon does not share.
Related questions
Which came first, xiangqi or janggi?
Xiangqi's modern form is generally treated as the older of the two, with janggi developing later in Korea from a related tradition.
Can a xiangqi player learn janggi quickly?
Much faster than learning either from scratch, since the board concept, piece roles and general idea of the palace all transfer directly.
.