What is Descriptive Notation?

Descriptive Notation is a method used to record chess games, and it was the most common notation in English- and Spanish-speaking countries until the late 20th century. In this system, each square of the chessboard is identified by a unique combination of a letter and a number. The vertical files are labeled from the perspective of the player, meaning the leftmost vertical file is considered the queen's rook file and so on. Each horizontal rank is numbered from 1 to 8. Therefore, each individual square is represented by its file letter and rank number.