7x7 Queens Puzzle #279

Difficulty: easy. Place 7 queens on this 7x7 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 10-step reasoning is written out below.

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Step-by-step solution for puzzle #279

What follows is a complete solve of puzzle #279, worked the way a person works it rather than the way a computer does. It runs to 10 deductions — 7 queen placements and 3 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 confined to one line, region shadow.

Show the full walkthrough (6 steps) — contains the solution

  1. Step 1. Only row 5, column 1 is still open in slate, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 5, column 1, the rest of the slate region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.

  2. Step 2. The indigo region is down to one open square, at row 1, column 2. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Cross out the whole of row 1 and column 2, the remaining indigo squares, and the ring of neighbours around row 1, column 2.

  3. Step 3. Amber cannot leave column 7 — every one of its open squares (3 open squares) sits there. That column belongs to amber, so every square in it owned by another colour is dead: 3 squares in all.

    Puzzle #279 after step 3: 2 of 7 queens placed
    The board after step 3 — 2 of 7 queens placed.

  4. Step 4. Wherever mint ends up among its 4 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 1 square in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.

  5. Step 5. Red cannot leave row 6 — every one of its open squares (2 open squares) sits there. That row belongs to red, so every square on it owned by another colour is dead: 4 squares in all.

  6. Step 6. 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: pale yellow has one square left, so its queen takes row 7, column 4; red has one square left, so its queen takes row 6, column 6; mint has one square left, so its queen takes row 4, column 5; blue has one square left, so its queen takes row 3, column 3; amber has one square left, so its queen takes row 2, column 7. 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 7.

    Puzzle #279 after step 6: 7 of 7 queens placed
    The board after step 6 — 7 of 7 queens placed.

That completes the board: 7 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 7x7 Queens puzzle #279

7x7 puzzle #279 is rated easy. Seven colored regions cover its 49 squares, and your job is to seat seven queens so that every row, column and color contains exactly one — with no queen touching another, including diagonally.

Puzzle #279 has been checked to admit exactly one arrangement of queens, and every step toward it is deducible from what is already on the board. There is no point at which you are expected to pick a square and hope. The only thing that differs between boards is how quickly the first certainty surfaces, and that depends entirely on the shapes the colors happen to take here.

How the colors divide this board

From smallest to largest, the regions on puzzle #279 are: slate (1 square), indigo (2 squares), red (4 squares), amber (5 squares), pale yellow (6 squares), mint (7 squares), blue (24 squares). An even split would hand every color 7 squares, so the slate region is running 6 squares under that average while the blue region is the roomiest area on the grid with 24 squares.

Every color takes one queen and one only, whatever its size — which is why the 23 square difference between slate and blue is worth noting before you touch the grid. The cramped colors resolve first and hand you information; the roomy ones absorb whatever is left over at the end.

Look at arrangement as well as area. Indigo is the densest region on this grid at 100% of a 1×2 frame; mint is the loosest, occupying only 44% of its 4×4 frame. The loose one reaches into more rows and columns, which is exactly why it usually settles last.

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.

Slate: 1 square across rows 5–5, columns 1–1. It never leaves row 5, so its queen is locked to that row.

Indigo covers 2 squares, spanning 1 row and 2 columns (rows 1–1, columns 1–2). It never leaves row 1, so its queen is locked to that row.

Red occupies 4 squares within rows 5–6, columns 5–7.

Amber: 5 squares across rows 1–4, columns 6–7.

Pale yellow covers 6 squares, spanning 3 rows and 4 columns (rows 5–7, columns 4–7).

Mint occupies 7 squares within rows 2–5, columns 4–7.

Blue: 24 squares across rows 1–7, columns 1–5.

Where to start on this board

The most constrained color is where a solve should begin, and on #279 that is slate with 1 square. It reaches from row 5 to row 5 and from column 1 to column 1 — 1 row by 1 column. One queen has to live inside that footprint no matter what else happens, which makes those lines the busiest real estate on the board.

Because slate never leaves row 5, its queen must be in that row — and that instantly settles row 5 for everyone else. Sweep along it and X out every square that is not slate. 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. Indigo and red 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 #279

A quick way to find the next move is to count how many different colors touch each line. On this board, row 7 is the narrowest, touched by only 2 colors. Column 3 is the tightest column, with 1 color.

The fewer colors a line touches, the sooner it surrenders its queen. A row meeting just 2 colors has to be claimed by one of them, which pushes every remaining region into the other 6 rows. Row 5, meeting 5 colors, is the opposite case — the busiest line on #279 and the last one you should expect to crack.

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.

With seven queens to seat and seven regions competing over 49 squares, keep two questions in rotation. Does any region now have exactly one open square left? That queen is forced. Does any row or column now have exactly one open square left? That queen is forced too. Alternating between the region view and the row-and-column view is what keeps a solve moving, and it is the clearest difference between players who finish 7x7 boards quickly and players who stall halfway.

Say the reason out loud: "this region has one square left", "this column has one square left". If no such sentence is available, the eliminating is not finished. One more pass of X marks is almost always quicker than committing to a placement you cannot defend.

Why puzzle #279 is rated easy

Ratings track how generous the opening is. On #279 you get three regions pinned to a single row or column, a smallest color of 1 square, a tightest row crossed by 2 colors, and a 23-square gap between the largest and smallest regions. Those four numbers largely explain the easy label.

The scale has nothing to do with maths or luck — every puzzle here is solvable by deduction and has exactly one answer. It measures reasoning depth: how many eliminations must stack up before a placement becomes provable. That depth is what separates a easy board from the rest.

When a board plays tougher than its label, look for a missed mark before you look for a clever deduction. Walk back over every queen you have placed and confirm the full row, the full column and all eight surrounding squares are crossed out. The diagonal neighbours are the ones players skip, and a single skipped diagonal will hide the next forced move indefinitely.

Techniques that work well at 7x7

At 7x7 the whole grid stays within a single glance, which makes systematic scanning practical. Read the rows in order and count the colors in each — a row touched by two colors is far more constrained than one touched by five, and that is usually where the next forced move hides. The board is small enough that re-scanning from the top after each placement costs almost nothing.

There is one technique that repays study at every grid size. Two regions restricted to the same two rows must occupy one row apiece, which excludes all other regions from those rows entirely; the identical logic applies to columns and to larger matched sets. It converts slow boards into fast ones, and the likeliest place to find it on #279 is column 3.

Here is a shape check that gives nothing away: when #279 is solved, 4 queens sit on the outer edge of the grid and 3 sit inside it, and no queen lands in a corner. A work-in-progress board that clusters its queens in one quadrant while leaving others bare is usually carrying a mistake.

How to play Queens

  1. The board is an N×N grid divided into N colored regions.
  2. Place exactly one queen (♛) in each row, each column, and each colored region.
  3. No two queens may touch each other — not horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
  4. 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.
  5. 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 7x7 Queens puzzle #279?

Puzzle #279 is rated easy. Its smallest color region holds 1 square, its tightest row is touched by 2 colors, and three of its regions are confined to a single row or column, which gives you a forced move early.

Does 7x7 puzzle #279 have only one solution?

Yes. Every puzzle in the 7x7 collection, including #279, has been verified to have exactly one valid arrangement of seven queens, and it can always be reached by logic alone — no guessing or backtracking needed.

Where should I place my first queen on puzzle #279?

Start with the slate region — the most constrained color on this board, with 1 square spanning rows 5–5 and columns 1–1. Narrowing the smallest region first removes the most squares elsewhere on the grid.