Queen (chess)

  

The queen (♕,♛) is the most powerful piece in the game of chess, being able to move any number of squares vertically, horizontally or diagonally. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of their first rank next to their king. The white queen starts on a white square, and the black queen on a black square, thus the mnemonic "queen gets her color" or "queen on color". In algebraic notation, the white queen starts on the d1 square and the black queen starts on the d8 square. Because the queen is the most powerful piece, when a pawn is promoted, it is almost always promoted to a queen.
In the game shatranj, an ancestor of chess, the queen was a fairly weak piece called a fers or vizier, only able to move or capture one square in a diagonal direction similar to a pawn. The modern queen's move arose in 15th century Europe.