Distinctive features of xiangqi include the cannon (pao), which must jump to capture; a rule prohibiting the generals from facing each other directly; areas on the board called the river and palace, which restrict the movement of some pieces but enhance that of others; and the placement of the pieces on the intersections of the board lines, rather than within the squares.

In xiangqi, a player—often with a material or positional disadvantage—may attempt to check or chase pieces in a way such that the moves fall in a cycle, preventing the opponent from winning.

While this is accepted in Western chess, in xiangqi, the following special rules are used to make it harder to draw the game by endless checking or chasing, regardless of whether the positions of the pieces are repeated or not: Different sets of rules set different limits on what is considered perpetual.

[2] The above rules to prevent perpetual checking and chasing, while popular, are not the only ones; there are numerous end game situations.

[9][dubious – discuss] Despite this, the general is sometimes called the "king" by English-speaking players, due to their similar functions as royal pieces.

There is some controversy about whether "士" really is intended to mean "scholar", "gentleman" which would be "士人", or "guard", "guardian" which would be "衛士" (simplified Chinese: 卫士).

[10] Horses (or knights) are labelled 馬 mǎⓘ for Black and 傌 mǎ for Red in sets marked with Traditional Chinese characters and 马 mǎ for both Black and Red in sets marked with Simplified Chinese characters.

[8] The horse does not jump as the knight does in Western chess, and can be blocked by a piece of either colour located one point horizontally or vertically adjacent to it.

The book The Chess of China describes a move notation method in which the ranks of the board are numbered 1 to 10 from closest to farthest away, followed by a digit 1 to 9 for files from right to left.

Thus the notation to move the middle of a set of tripled soldiers on the 5th file to the 4th file would be: In older books written in Chinese the system is the same, except that: the names of the pieces are written in Chinese; the name for the cannon on both sides is 炮; the name for the horse on both sides is 馬; forward motion is indicated with 進 (pronounced jìn); backward motion is indicated with 退 (tuì); sideways motion is indicated with 平 (píng); and numbers are written in Chinese either for both players or for just Black.

For an attacking (Red) horse, the most fatal points are c9 and g9 (Chinese: 臥槽馬), especially since without proper defence a quick mate can follow with an extra chariot or cannon.

Another fatal formation, called the "cannon-controlled centroid horse" (Chinese: 炮鎮窩心馬, diagram at right), also requires particularly bad coordination of the enemy pieces.

Losing any defensive pieces makes the general vulnerable to cannon attack, and the setup may need to be abandoned.

...Adxe9 7.Rh9+ Eeg10 8.Rxe9+ (the chariot is untouchable with legal moves) Gd10 9.Re10+ Gd9 10.d8+ Gxd8 11.Rd10# Long sequences of checks leading to mate or gain of material are common both in chess compositions and in actual play.

The following study from Volume 42 of the Elegant Pastime Manual, dating from the Ming Dynasty, illustrates this dramatically.

Ancient reports state that "the pieces ... were called after the sun, the moon, the planets and the star-houses", in contrast with modern xiangqi.

[19][20]: 334 Some Sinologists and Chinese historians prefer an alternative hypothesis, according to which xiangqi originated in China and then spread westwards, giving rise to Indian and Persian chess.

[19][20]: 351–352  Specifically, it has been claimed that Xiangqi arose during the Warring States period and was patterned after the array of troops at the time.

David H. Li, for example, argues that the game was developed by Han Xin in the winter of 204–203 BC to prepare for an upcoming battle.

[22] The earliest description of the game's rules appears in the story "Cén Shùn" (岑順) in the collection Xuanguai lu (玄怪錄), written by Niu Sengru in the middle part of the Tang dynasty.

Each European nation generally has its own governing league; for example, in Britain, xiangqi is regulated by the United Kingdom Chinese Chess Association.

[27][28][29] The Asian Xiangqi Federation (AXF) and its corresponding member associations rank players in a format similar to the Elo rating system of chess.

According to the XiangQi DataBase, the top-ranking female and male players in China, as of June 2012, were Tang Dan and Jiang Chuan, with ratings of 2529 and 2667, respectively.

[35] Computer programs for playing xiangqi show the same development trend as has occurred for international chess: they are usually console applications (called engines) which communicate their moves in text form through some standard protocol.

San Guo Qi "Game of the Three Kingdoms" is played on a special hexagonal board with three xiangqi armies (red, blue, and green) vying for dominance.

The new pieces have different names depending on their side: huo ("fire") for Red, qi ("flag") for Blue, and feng ("wind") for Green.

The generals each bear the name of a historical Chinese kingdom—Shu for Red, Wei for Blue, and Wu for Green—from China's Three Kingdoms period.

[37] San You Qi "Three Friends Chess" was invented by Zheng Jinde from Shexian in the Anhui province during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing dynasty (1661–1722).

In the centre of the board sits a triangular zone with certain features, such as ocean, mountain, or city walls, each of which is impassable by certain pieces.

[37] Sanrenqi "Three Men Chess" is a riverless, commercial variant played on a cross-shaped board with some special rules, including a fourth, neutral country called Han.