Women's Candidates Tournament

The Women's Candidates Tournament is a major women's chess tournament organized by FIDE.

It is a final contest to determine the challenger for the Women's World Chess Championship. The winner of the Candidates earns the right to a match for the World Championship against the incumbent world champion. The inaugural Women's Candidates tournament was held in 1952 and continued for every Women's World Championship match (except 1958) until 1997, after which the match format was abandoned and replaced by a knock-out tournament. The Women's Candidates tournament was brought back in 2019 when FIDE re-instituted the match format as the sole format for determining the Women's World Champion.