The pawn (♙,♟) is the most numerous piece in the game of chess, and in most circumstances, also the weakest. It historically represents infantry, or more particularly, armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins a game with eight pawns, one on each square of the rank immediately in front of the other pieces. (The white pawns start on a2, b2, c2, ..., h2; the black pawns start on a7, b7, c7, ..., h7.)
Individual pawns are referred to by the file on which they stand. For example, one speaks of "White's f-pawn" or "Black's b-pawn", or less commonly (using descriptive notation), "White's king bishop pawn" or "Black's queen knight pawn". It is also common to refer to a rook pawn, meaning any pawn on the a- or h-file, a knight pawn (on the b- or g-file), a bishop pawn (on the c- or f-file), a queen pawn (on the d-file), a king pawn (on the e-file), and a central pawn (on the d- or e-file).