11x11 Queens Puzzle #17
Difficulty: easy. Place 11 queens on this 11x11 board so that no two share a row, column or color region and none touch — including diagonally. This puzzle has exactly one solution, and it has been verified solvable by deduction alone: the complete 18-step reasoning is written out below.
Previous puzzle · All 11x11 puzzles · Next puzzle
Step-by-step solution for puzzle #17
What follows is a complete solve of puzzle #17, worked the way a person works it rather than the way a computer does. It runs to 18 deductions — 11 queen placements and 7 elimination steps that narrow the board between them. Each step names the rule that forces it, so nothing below is a guess, and the hardest idea required is the region shadow.
Techniques this board needs: last square in a region, region shadow, region confined to one line.
Show the full walkthrough (12 steps) — contains the solution
Step 1. Only row 1, column 11 is still open in indigo, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 1, column 11, the rest of the indigo region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 2. The mint region is down to one open square, at row 4, column 8. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Cross out the whole of row 4 and column 8, the remaining mint squares, and the ring of neighbours around row 4, column 8.
Step 3. Only row 2, column 7 is still open in amber, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. Everything else in row 2, in column 7, in amber and in the ring around that square is now dead.
Step 4. Wherever red ends up among its 6 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 1 square in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.
The board after step 4 — 3 of 11 queens placed. Step 5. Pale yellow cannot leave column 1 — every one of its open squares (3 open squares) sits there. That column belongs to pale yellow, so every square in it owned by another colour is dead: 6 squares in all.
Step 6. All of the sea green region's remaining squares (2 open squares) lie in column 2. Its queen therefore has to be somewhere in that column, which means no other colour may use it: 7 squares come off.
Step 7. Wherever orange ends up among its 6 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 1 square in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.
Step 8. All of the teal region's remaining squares (3 open squares) lie in row 11. Its queen therefore has to be somewhere on that row, which means no other colour may use it: 4 squares come off.
The board after step 8 — 3 of 11 queens placed. Step 9. Only row 10, column 2 is still open in sea green, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 10, column 2, the rest of the sea green region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 10. Wherever khaki ends up among its 3 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 1 square in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.
Step 11. Orange cannot leave row 9 — every one of its open squares (2 open squares) sits there. That row belongs to orange, so every square on it owned by another colour is dead: 3 squares in all.
Step 12. From here the board cascades. Keep alternating the region sweep and the line sweep and 7 queens fall out in order without any new idea being needed: khaki has one square left, so its queen takes row 8, column 10; red has one square left, so its queen takes row 6, column 9; pale yellow has one square left, so its queen takes row 7, column 1; slate has one square left, so its queen takes row 5, column 6; orange has one square left, so its queen takes row 9, column 4; teal has one square left, so its queen takes row 11, column 5; blue has one square left, so its queen takes row 3, column 3. After each one, clear that row, that column, the rest of the colour and the ring of neighbours before looking for the next. The last of them seats the queen on row 3, column 3.
The board after step 12 — 11 of 11 queens placed.
That completes the board: 11 queens seated, one in every row, one in every column and one in every colour, with no two of them touching. Notice that nothing in the sequence above required a guess — each placement followed from an elimination already on the grid, which is what “single solution, solvable by logic” actually means in practice.
About 11x11 Queens puzzle #17
Puzzle #17 is one of the easy-rated boards in the 11x11 set. Eleven colors divide its 121 squares, and you win by placing eleven queens so that each row, each column and each color holds exactly one, with no two queens adjacent in any direction.
There is exactly one way to finish #17, and it has been verified. More importantly, you can reach it without ever gambling: at every stage some square is provably right or provably wrong. Boards differ only in how deep you must dig before that proof appears, and the geometry of these eleven regions is what sets the depth.
How the colors divide this board
From smallest to largest, the regions on puzzle #17 are: indigo (1 square), mint (1 square), pale yellow (3 squares), sea green (4 squares), teal (6 squares), amber (7 squares), slate (9 squares), orange (9 squares), khaki (19 squares), red (25 squares), blue (37 squares). An even split would hand every color 11 squares, so the indigo region is running 10 squares under that average while the blue region is the roomiest area on the grid with 37 squares.
Why does the split matter? Because a region's square count has no bearing on how many queens it gets — the answer is always one. So indigo, with 1 square, is under far more pressure than blue with 37. A 36-square gap like this one rewards players who start where the choices are fewest.
Square count is only half the story — how a color is arranged counts too. Indigo is the tidiest shape on #17, packing 100% of its 1×1 bounding box, whereas khaki straggles across its 7×5 box at just 54%. Tidy blocks are easy to work around; scattered ones touch more lines and resist resolution.
Region by region
Each region's exact extent on this grid is listed below, starting with the most constrained. Knowing which lines a color can and cannot reach is most of the work on a easy board.
Indigo occupies 1 square within rows 1–1, columns 11–11. It never leaves row 1, so its queen is locked to that row.
Mint: 1 square across rows 4–4, columns 8–8. It never leaves row 4, so its queen is locked to that row.
Pale yellow covers 3 squares, spanning 3 rows and 1 column (rows 7–9, columns 1–1). It sits wholly inside column 1, so its queen must be in that column.
Sea green occupies 4 squares within rows 10–11, columns 1–2.
Teal: 6 squares across rows 10–11, columns 4–8.
Amber covers 7 squares, spanning 3 rows and 3 columns (rows 1–3, columns 6–8).
Slate occupies 9 squares within rows 5–9, columns 4–6.
Orange: 9 squares across rows 9–11, columns 2–6.
Khaki covers 19 squares, spanning 7 rows and 5 columns (rows 5–11, columns 7–11).
Red occupies 25 squares within rows 1–8, columns 7–11.
Blue: 37 squares across rows 1–8, columns 1–6.
Where to start on this board
Indigo is the natural opening on #17: it is the smallest region on the grid at 1 square, boxed into rows 1–1 and columns 11–11. Since one of those squares must hold a queen, that block of 1 row and 1 column is the most contested part of the board.
Because indigo never leaves row 1, its queen must be in that row — and that instantly settles row 1 for everyone else. Sweep along it and X out every square that is not indigo. Then look at which colors just lost ground: on a grid this size that one observation usually forces a second region within a move or two.
Work outward to the other flat regions next. Mint, sea green and teal are no more than two rows tall, so their queens are confined to a narrow band. When two flat regions overlap the same pair of rows, those rows are spoken for and every other color is locked out of both — the single most productive pattern in the game, and it is live on this board.
The tightest lines on puzzle #17
A quick way to find the next move is to count how many different colors touch each line. On this board, rows 2, 3 and 4 are the narrowest, touched by only 3 colors. Columns 3, 9 and 10 are the tightest columns, with 2 colors.
Those lines matter because a row touched by few colors gives its queen away sooner. If a row meets only 3 colors, then one of those regions has to own it, and every other region is competing for the remaining 10 rows. By contrast row 8 meets 5 colors — the most crowded line here, and the one least likely to resolve early. Spend your attention accordingly.
Working through the middle game
Once two or three queens are down, the board changes character. Each queen removes an entire row, an entire column and the ring of up to eight squares around it, so the grid shrinks faster than most people expect. The habit that pays here is marking rather than remembering: after every placement, cross out the full row, the full column and all eight neighbours before hunting for the next move.
Two checks, run alternately, will carry you through the 121 squares of this grid. First: has any of the eleven regions been reduced to a single open square? Second: has any row or column? Either answer forces a queen. Players who stall on 11x11 boards almost always run one of those checks and forget the other.
A placement without a reason is a guess. Because this board has exactly one solution, a guess that happens to be wrong will not announce itself for several moves — and unwinding it is slower than simply finishing the eliminations first.
Why puzzle #17 is rated easy
The easy label comes out of four measurable things about #17: five of its regions are locked to one row or column, its smallest color spans 1 square, its least crowded row meets 3 colors, and its largest and smallest regions differ by 36. Boards that score tight on those measures give up their first queen fast.
Nothing about the rating involves computation or chance. Each grid has a single solution reachable by pure logic; the rating simply measures how far ahead you have to reason. Easy boards resolve a queen every step or two, while hard ones can ask you to carry three unfinished lines of thought before any of them pays off.
Stuck on #17 despite the easy rating? The odds strongly favour a bookkeeping error over a hard chain of logic. Re-check each placed queen for its complete set of eliminations, paying particular attention to the four diagonal squares — those are the ones that get overlooked, and one of them is usually sitting on the answer.
Techniques that work well at 11x11
At 11x11 you are managing 121 squares, and holding the whole board in your head will not work. Split it into quadrants and solve locally. Most useful deductions on a grid this large are regional — a color pinched between two placed queens, or a band of rows that two regions must share. Trust the marks on the board over your memory.
Learn the pairing argument and you will use it on every board, this one included. If two colors can only sit inside the same two rows, between them they consume both rows and every other color is shut out. It generalises to any matching count — three colors across three rows, four across four. On #17, start hunting for it near column 3.
As a sanity check rather than a spoiler: the finished solution to #17 puts 3 queens on the outer border and 8 queens in the interior, 1 of them in an actual corner. If your part-finished grid has queens bunched into one area while whole stretches sit empty, something probably went wrong a few moves back.
How to play Queens
- The board is an N×N grid divided into N colored regions.
- Place exactly one queen (♛) in each row, each column, and each colored region.
- No two queens may touch each other — not horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
- Tap once to mark a square with an X (where a queen can't go), tap again to place a queen, and once more to clear it.
- There is always exactly one valid solution. Use logic, never guessing, to find it.
Full rules · Strategy library · Puzzle statistics
Questions about this puzzle
How hard is 11x11 Queens puzzle #17?
Puzzle #17 is rated easy. Its smallest color region holds 1 square, its tightest row is touched by 3 colors, and five of its regions are confined to a single row or column, which gives you a forced move early.
Does 11x11 puzzle #17 have only one solution?
Yes. Every puzzle in the 11x11 collection, including #17, has been verified to have exactly one valid arrangement of eleven queens, and it can always be reached by logic alone — no guessing or backtracking needed.
Where should I place my first queen on puzzle #17?
Start with the indigo region — the most constrained color on this board, with 1 square spanning rows 1–1 and columns 11–11. Narrowing the smallest region first removes the most squares elsewhere on the grid.