List of FIDE chess world number ones

A total of seven chess players have been the chess world number one on the official FIDE rating list since it was first published in July 1971.^[1]

The first world number one, in July 1971, was Bobby Fischer. In January 1976 Anatoly Karpov became the highest-rated player on the FIDE list, FIDE having dropped Fischer (whose rating was higher than Karpov's) from the list due to inactivity. In January 1984, Garry Kasparov became the third world number one. He would dominate for 22 years from 1984 until his retirement from professional chess on 10 March 2005, with three brief interruptions: Anatoly Karpov briefly held the world number one ranking again in July 1985, as well as during 1994 when FIDE excluded Kasparov from the list; and the fourth world number one, Vladimir Kramnik, briefly held the ranking in January 1996. In January 1990, Kasparov surpassed Fischer's peak of 2785 and became the first player ever to achieve a 2800 rating. In July 1999, he reached his peak rating, 2851. This was the highest FIDE rating in history until January 2013, when it was surpassed by Magnus Carlsen.

On Kasparov's retirement, the world number one ranking passed to Veselin Topalov, since Kasparov was removed from the rating list in April 2006 due to inactivity. In April 2007, Viswanathan Anand became the sixth player to top the rankings.^[2] Kramnik briefly returned to the number one ranking in January 2008, but was again joint number one by rating, being placed first in the list due to having played more games in the rating period in question. For most of the period April 2007 to November 2009, the top ranking was held by either Anand or Topalov. The seventh and current world number one is Magnus Carlsen, who first achieved this ranking in the January 2010 list, and has been world number one since July 2011 after having lost and reclaimed the position from Anand during 2010 and 2011.