The Women's World Chess Championship 2006 took place from March 10–27, 2006 in Ekaterinburg, Russia.
The tournament was won by Xu Yuhua, who beat Alisa Galliamova in the final by 2½ to ½.
The players[1] were seeded by their FIDE Elo ratings of January 2006,[2] except that defending champion Antoaneta Stefanova was the no.
Only two players from the top 20 were absent: Judit Polgár (ranked the no.
1 woman in the world – and 14th overall) who instead took part in the open championship events of 2005 and 2007, as well as Hoang Thanh Trang (ranked 11th).