Chovgan, Chowgan or Chogan (Persian: چوگان, romanized: čōwgan), is a team sport with horses that originated in ancient Iran (Persia).

Chovgan was later brought from India to England in the 19th century it became more popular, and the addition of new rules favored the spread of this game in Europe and the United States.

[9] The neighboring Eastern Romans adopted chovgan from the Sasanians and called it tzykanion, which derives from the Middle Persian word.

[8][12] According to The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, the popularity of polo in Tang China was "bolstered, no doubt, by the presence of the Sasanian court in exile".

Women as well as men played the game, as indicated by references to the queen and her ladies engaging King Khosrow II Parviz and his courtiers in the 6th century AD.

[citation needed] Ferdowsi, the famed Iranian poet-historian, gives several reports of royal chogan tournaments in his 9th-century epic, Shahnameh (the Book of Kings).

Ferdowsi also tells of Emperor Shapur II of the Sasanian dynasty of the 4th century, who learned to play polo when he was only seven years old.

[citation needed] From Persia, polo spread to the Byzantines (who called it tzykanion), and after the Muslim conquests to the Ayyubid and Mameluke dynasties of Egypt and the Levant, whose elites favored it above all other sports.

[16] Later on Polo was passed from Persia to other parts of Asia, including the Indian subcontinent[17] and China, where it was trendy during the Tang dynasty and frequently depicted in paintings and statues.

Mentions of the chovgan game also appear in “Khosrow and Shirin”, a poem by the Persian poet and thinker Nizami Ganjavi, and in pages of the Turkic epic “Kitabi Dede Korkut”.

[4] In 1979, a documentary called “Chovgan game”, shot by Azerbaijan's Jafar Jabbarly film studio recorded the sport's rules and historical development.

Since 2006, Azerbaijan has held a national tournament in December known as the President's Cup at the Republican Equestrian Tourism Center,[21] at Dashyuz near Shaki.

The first of these, held from December 22–25, 2006, pitted teams from eight cities of Azerbaijan – Shaki, Aghdam, Ağstafa, Balakən, Qakh, Gazakh, Oğuz, and Zagatala with those from Aghstafa taking overall victory.