Well hi!
The oldest game in the world dates back to 3500 BCE (I wasn’t around back then) — and
it means we’ve been playing games for more than 5,500 years . Let’s take a look at
the game venues we use for them — from the smallest to the biggest!
Starting with checkers, the smallest yet the most ancient of modern games.
The board is just 16 by 16 inches, with each square being 2 inches across.
The first mentions of checkers (or draughts, as it’s otherwise called) dates back to
3000 BCE.
A chess board is of a similar size, but the game itself is much younger: it was first
played in the 14th century.
Next goes darts — a huge leap forward in time but not in size.
The standard board is 17 inches in diameter.
The game we know now was invented by Brian Gamlin, an English carpenter, in 1896, and
has since not changed too much.
Back in time to backgammon — another pretty old board game, also dating back about 5,000
years.
There’s no fixed board size, but some of the biggest ones are 25 by 21 inches.
The board is most commonly made of wood, but it can also be leather, cork, felt, or just
about any material good enough for sliding checkers on it.
Your normal Ping pong table measures at 107 inches long and 60 inches wide.
Professional players don’t call the game ping pong, though — it’s table tennis
for them.
And while the table is the same, the game rules — and stakes — are very different.
Different — just like pool and snooker billiards.
The largest pool table is a nine-footer: its dimensions are 9 by 4.5 ft, but it could also
be 8 or 7 ft in length.
The main rule here is that it’s always twice as long as it is wide.
As for snooker table, it’s about 12 by 6 ft.
This is an approximate measure, though, because the World Professional Billiards and Snooker
Association gives strict dimensions that can only digress by half an inch.
Next is a boxing ring.
The whole platform is a square with a side of 307 inches, but the ring itself is smaller
— just 240 inches.
Nowhere to hide or run here, bud.
By the way, there are two white corners, and then a red and a blue corner, where the fighters
prepare for the match and recover.
Squash is kinda like tennis but played with a wall as part of the game.
The court is 30 ft long and 20 ft wide, and you can play this game both with a partner
and alone.
Slightly larger with more breathing space is a karate arena.
The fighting square is 26 by 26 ft, but the overall area is 32 ft squared, which accommodates
the referee and the added safety zone.
No ropes for this one, though, only flat surface and nothing more.
Badminton court is longer but narrower than a karate arena.
Its length is almost 43 ft, while it’s only 20 ft wide.
Surely you didn’t know this sport had fixed dimensions?
Well, I didn’t.
Even longer and even narrower still is a bowling lane — 60 ft long, 42 inches wide, the ten-pin
bowling is a globally acknowledged sport.
Ever made a strike or a split in your spare evening, huh?
Share in the comments!
Now, who doesn’t love beach volleyball?
With the court of 52 by 26 ft, this summer sport is played in teams of two, and you can
play it wherever there’s some sand and a net to throw the ball over.
Indoor volleyball court is a more crowded place: it’s normally 60 by 30 ft, and the
teams are three times as large too, with six players on each side.
Surprisingly, a tennis court is larger, though.
With 78 ft in length and 26 ft in width, it could easily accommodate even more people
than a volleyball court, but only two play here.
And if there are four, the width is even larger at 36 ft.
So much running around…
Heading on to big guys.
Basketball court is 95 by 50 ft, which you can’t cross without dribbling the ball.
Originally, you didn’t have to dribble, but you could only move the ball by passing
it.
Dribbling was invented as a way to pass to yourself.
Splash!
We’re in a water polo pool, and I chose the biggest one available.
It’s 100 ft long and 65 ft wide, so there’s a lot of space to swim even for two teams
of seven members.
According to the rules, you can’t push the opponents down with your hands, but there’s
nothing in the rules about pulling them underwater with your feet!
A quick riddle: what’s water polo without water?
It’s handball!
But the court is a bit larger here: 130 ft long and 65 ft wide.
Despite its name, legs are just as important in handball as hands: apart from running like
crazy, players kick the ball too.
All this running around makes me sweat, so back to the water!
An Olympic-sized pool is 165 by 80 ft.
In training arenas, the length can be cut in two, and training becomes even more intense
because of more frequent turning maneuvers.
Unfortunately, if you want to play ice hockey, you can’t just freeze an Olympic pool: it’s
too small.
A standard ice hockey rink is about 200 ft long and 100 ft wide.
It also has rounded corners for better handling of the puck.
Let’s bring back summer with a baseball field: it’s really big already, measuring
at 300 by 300 ft.
It’s not a square, though, as you might know — it has the infield, or a diamond,
and the outfield, which fans out from the diamond in a crescent.
Soccer field dimensions can vary, but a Major League one is typically 350 ft in length and
150 ft in width.
I guess kicking the ball while running all the time is hard enough without making the
field too big.
The rugged rugby players, though, have to cross a considerable distance: their field
is 390 ft long and 230 ft wide.
It’s just 30 ft shy of being as long as the Great Pyramid of Giza is tall!
But we’re still going for bigger stuff!
While a cricket pitch might be much smaller, the overall field is pretty huge: it’s slightly
egg-shaped, with the widest part being 490 ft and the narrowest — 450 ft.
It may look a bit like baseball, but the rules and the scale are something else entirely.
Now, if you thought a rugby field was big enough, consider the Australian football:
the standard field there is oval-shaped, 540 ft in length and 440 ft in width.
That’s a long way to run, I’d say — and it’s the longest humans would go in an enclosed
space on their own two feet.
That’s why we switch to four legs: a racecourse is typically about 3,000 ft long and 1,150
ft wide.
The oldest and most revered horse race is called the Derby, and is annually held in
England.
Replace the legs with wheels, and you’ll get a race track.
The longest looped track in the world is called Talladega Superspeedway.
It’s over 5,700 ft long and 3,100 ft wide, and the length of the track itself is 2.66
miles.
And finally, the largest field made for sports and recreation is… no, it’s not some other
race track.
It’s a golf course.
Of course.
Though the largest golf facility, which has even made it in the Guinness World Records,
is China’s Mission Hills Shenzhen golf resort, it has 18 courses, and none of them alone
is the largest in the world.
The title of the longest course on the planet belongs to the Australian Nullarbor Links,
which stretches across the whopping 850 miles, taking in parts of both Western and Southern
Australia.
Players must get lost in there from time to time.
Wow – all of the fields and boards we’ve covered with you today.
Kinda makes you want to go play something, doesn’t it?
What’s your favorite game?
Tell me about it in the comments!
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