---
title: "How Old Is Xiangqi Compared to Go? · Xiangqi Master"
description: "Go is documented in Chinese sources many centuries before xiangqi reached its modern Song-dynasty form, making it the considerably older game."
url: https://xiangqimaster.com/blog/how-does-xiangqis-age-compare-to-gos
updated: 2026-09-22
source: Xiangqi Master (https://xiangqimaster.com)
license: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
---

# How does xiangqi's age compare to go's?

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
>
> **Go is considerably older.** It is documented in Chinese sources many centuries before xiangqi settled into its modern form during the Song dynasty. The two games are not close in age, despite both being ancient by the standards of most board games still played today.

## Why the comparison is still useful

It puts xiangqi's own age in perspective. A thousand years sounds enormous next to almost any other pastime, and it is, but within the specific world of Chinese board games, xiangqi is the newer of the two major ones, not the older. See [when xiangqi was invented](https://xiangqimaster.com/blog/when-was-xiangqi-invented) for what actually anchors that dating.

## Why they are rarely compared directly outside this kind of question

The games are structurally very different, capture versus territory, a single target versus none, so their histories are usually studied separately even though both are central to Chinese board-game culture and both are still played daily in parks across China today.

## Related questions

Is go older than western chess too?

Yes, by most accounts, go's documented history predates the medieval emergence of both xiangqi and western chess.

Did xiangqi borrow anything from go?

The convention of playing on intersections rather than inside squares is shared between the two, and is generally understood as the older East Asian convention.

## Related xiangqi resources

History of xiangqi

When the game was invented, and what is actually documented

Xiangqi vs chess

What carries over from western chess, and what does not

Xiangqi questions answered

Every question on this site, in one index

## Try it on a real board

Reading an answer is one thing; playing it is another. Free, instant, and nothing to install.