FEN Viewer & Board Editor
Paste a FEN to view a position, or pick a piece below and click squares to build your own. The FEN updates as you edit.
Tip: pick Erase to remove a piece. See the FEN format guide.
What is FEN?
FEN (Forsyth-Edwards Notation) packs a complete chess position — every piece, whose turn it is, castling rights, and the en-passant square — into a single line of text. Unlike PGN, which records a whole game as a sequence of moves, FEN only describes one snapshot: the position right now. That makes it the standard way to set up a puzzle, start an engine analysis from a specific spot, or share "look at this position" without replaying an entire game.
Reading a FEN string
The starting position looks like this:
rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1
The first field lists each of the 8 ranks from rank 8 down to rank 1, separated by / — a letter is a piece (uppercase for White, lowercase for Black; King, Queen, Rook, Bishop, Nknight, Pawn) and a digit is that many empty squares in a row. After the board come, in order: whose turn it is (w/b), remaining castling rights, the en-passant target square (or -), the halfmove clock, and the full move number.
Using the editor above
Paste an existing FEN into the box to see that exact position on the board, or start from scratch: pick a piece from the palette, click squares to place it, choose whose turn it is, and the FEN field updates live as you build the position — ready to copy anywhere that accepts FEN (engines, databases, forum posts). Note that the editor tracks pieces and side-to-move but not castling/en-passant history, so those fields are simplified (-) on positions you build by hand — accurate for analysis, but not a substitute for a real game record.
Frequently asked questions
Where do I get a FEN for a specific moment in a game? Every position in the PGN Viewer shows its FEN as you step through the moves — copy it from there. Puzzle and opening pages on ChessBhumi also show the FEN for their starting position.
My pasted FEN says "Invalid FEN" — why? The board part needs exactly 8 ranks separated by /, using only piece letters and digits 1-8 that add up to 8 squares per rank. A common cause is copying only part of a longer FEN string, or extra whitespace.
What's the difference between FEN and PGN? FEN is a single position; PGN is a full move-by-move game. See the full FEN format guide for every field explained in more depth.