11x11 Queens Puzzle #201
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 13-step reasoning is written out below.
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Step-by-step solution for puzzle #201
What follows is a complete solve of puzzle #201, worked the way a person works it rather than the way a computer does. It runs to 13 deductions — 11 queen placements and 2 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.
Show the full walkthrough (4 steps) — contains the solution
Step 1. The board opens by cascading. Each of these placements is forced the moment the one before it is marked, so the whole run is really a single sweep repeated: blue has one square left, so its queen takes row 3, column 7; mint has one square left, so its queen takes row 4, column 4; red has one square left, so its queen takes row 6, column 11; teal has one square left, so its queen takes row 11, column 5; sea green has one square left, so its queen takes row 10, column 10; orange has one square left, so its queen takes row 9, column 2. 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 9, column 2.
Step 2. Wherever slate ends up among its 2 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 3 squares in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.
The board after step 2 — 6 of 11 queens placed. Step 3. Pale yellow is down to 2 candidates in rows 7 and 8, columns 3 and 6, and they overlap enough to cover 1 square elsewhere. Cross those out without deciding anything about pale yellow itself.
Step 4. From here the board cascades. Keep alternating the region sweep and the line sweep and 5 queens fall out in order without any new idea being needed: khaki has one square left, so its queen takes row 8, column 8; slate has one square left, so its queen takes row 5, column 9; indigo has one square left, so its queen takes row 1, column 6; pale yellow has one square left, so its queen takes row 7, column 3; amber has one square left, so its queen takes row 2, column 1. 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 2, column 1.
The board after step 4 — 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 #201
Puzzle #201 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 #201, 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 #201 are: blue (1 square), mint (1 square), red (1 square), teal (2 squares), orange (6 squares), sea green (8 squares), pale yellow (15 squares), indigo (17 squares), slate (18 squares), amber (23 squares), khaki (29 squares). An even split would hand every color 11 squares, so the blue region is running 10 squares under that average while the khaki region is the roomiest area on the grid with 29 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 blue, with 1 square, is under far more pressure than khaki with 29. A 28-square gap like this one rewards players who start where the choices are fewest.
Shape matters as much as size. The blue region is the most compact color here, filling 100% of the 1×1 box that encloses it, while khaki is the most scattered at 45% of its 8×8 box. Compact regions are easy to eliminate around; straggling ones reach into more rows and columns and tend to stay unresolved until late.
Region by region
The complete breakdown of each region on this board follows, ordered from tightest to roomiest. Skimming the spans first tells you where the board is crowded and where it has slack.
Blue: 1 square across rows 3–3, columns 7–7. It never leaves row 3, so its queen is locked to that row.
Mint covers 1 square, spanning 1 row and 1 column (rows 4–4, columns 4–4). It never leaves row 4, so its queen is locked to that row.
Red occupies 1 square within rows 6–6, columns 11–11. It never leaves row 6, so its queen is locked to that row.
Teal: 2 squares across rows 11–11, columns 4–5. It never leaves row 11, so its queen is locked to that row.
Orange covers 6 squares, spanning 3 rows and 3 columns (rows 9–11, columns 1–3).
Sea green occupies 8 squares within rows 7–11, columns 9–11.
Pale yellow: 15 squares across rows 6–9, columns 2–6.
Indigo covers 17 squares, spanning 5 rows and 6 columns (rows 1–5, columns 4–9).
Slate occupies 18 squares within rows 1–7, columns 8–11.
Amber: 23 squares across rows 1–9, columns 1–5.
Khaki covers 29 squares, spanning 8 rows and 8 columns (rows 4–11, columns 3–10).
Where to start on this board
Blue is the natural opening on #201: it is the smallest region on the grid at 1 square, boxed into rows 3–3 and columns 7–7. 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 blue never leaves row 3, its queen must be in that row — and that instantly settles row 3 for everyone else. Sweep along it and X out every square that is not blue. 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, red 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 #201
A quick way to find the next move is to count how many different colors touch each line. On this board, rows 1, 2 and 10 are the narrowest, touched by only 3 colors. Column 1 is the tightest column, 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 9 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
After the first few queens the puzzle becomes bookkeeping. A placed queen wipes its row, its column and every square it touches — as many as eight neighbours — so the space collapses quickly. Record those eliminations on the board instead of carrying them in your head, and the next forced move tends to announce itself.
The whole middle game reduces to two sweeps. Sweep the eleven colors looking for one with a single square left; sweep the eleven rows and eleven columns looking for the same. Each sweep feeds the next, and switching between them deliberately — rather than drifting — is what separates a fast 11x11 solve from a stalled one.
The trap on a board like this is placing a queen that is merely plausible. Every placement should be traceable to an elimination you can point at. If you cannot name the rule that forced it, you are guessing — and on a single-solution grid a guess costs more to unwind than the deduction would have taken to find.
Why puzzle #201 is rated easy
Ratings track how generous the opening is. On #201 you get seven regions pinned to a single row or column, a smallest color of 1 square, a tightest row crossed by 3 colors, and a 28-square gap between the largest and smallest regions. Those four numbers largely explain the easy label.
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 #201 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 #201, start hunting for it near column 1.
As a sanity check rather than a spoiler: the finished solution to #201 puts 4 queens on the outer border and 7 queens in the interior, with none in a 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.
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Questions about this puzzle
How hard is 11x11 Queens puzzle #201?
Puzzle #201 is rated easy. Its smallest color region holds 1 square, its tightest row is touched by 3 colors, and seven of its regions are confined to a single row or column, which gives you a forced move early.
Does 11x11 puzzle #201 have only one solution?
Yes. Every puzzle in the 11x11 collection, including #201, 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 #201?
Start with the blue region — the most constrained color on this board, with 1 square spanning rows 3–3 and columns 7–7. Narrowing the smallest region first removes the most squares elsewhere on the grid.