The Spread of Shogi Outside Japan
The game of shogi has developed independently inside Japan, and its pieces are differentiated by Japanese characters written on them, factors which have impeded the spread of the game outside Japan. By way of comparison, the game of go has spread internationally for a combination of many reasons, including the facts that it originated in China, its rules are (more or less) unified at an international level, it is played using black and white stones, and that it does not resemble games unique to another country (as is the case with shogi, which is one of many games resembling chess).
However, in the 1990s, efforts to make shogi popular outside Japan began in earnest. It has grown to be particularly popular in the People's Republic of China, and especially Shanghai. The January 2006 edition of Kindai Shogi (近代将棋?) states that Shanghai has a shogi population of 120,000 people. The game has been relatively slow to spread to countries where Chinese characters are not in common use, although attempts have been made to aid adoption by replacing the names of pieces with symbols indicating how they move.
Read more about this topic: History Of Shogi
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