Solitaire vs Klondike: What's the Difference?
There is no difference in the way most people use the words. Solitaire is the family name for hundreds of one-player card games, and Klondike is the specific member of that family most people mean when they say "solitaire": seven columns, alternating red and black, aces to kings. The game on your old Windows PC was Klondike.
So if you've been playing "solitaire" your whole life and just met the word "Klondike," relax. You haven't been playing the wrong game, and there's no new rule to learn. You've been playing Klondike all along, the way someone who says "tape" usually means Scotch tape.
The family and the famous member
Solitaire (called "patience" in Britain and much of Europe) covers any card game for one player. Spider is a solitaire. FreeCell is a solitaire. Pyramid, Yukon, Golf, Forty Thieves: all solitaires, hundreds of them catalogued over two centuries, most with rules that would look alien to a Klondike player. Our types of solitaire page maps the major branches.
Klondike is one specific recipe: deal seven tableau columns holding one through seven cards, build them down in alternating colors, draw from a stock, and build four foundations up by suit from ace to king. If those rules are what you know, you know Klondike. The full rules live on our how to play page, and the game itself is on the homepage.
The relationship is genus and species. Every Klondike game is solitaire; most solitaire games aren't Klondike.
How one game swallowed the family name
Blame Microsoft, affectionately. When Windows 3.0 shipped in 1990, it included a card game named simply "Solitaire," and that game was Klondike. It didn't say Klondike anywhere a normal user would look. Hundreds of millions of people learned the game from that title bar, so for an entire generation, this specific ruleset and the word "solitaire" fused into one thing.
The name Klondike itself is older, tied by tradition to the Klondike gold rush of the 1890s, with the game appearing in American game books in the early 1900s. The history page digs into that story properly, including which parts are well documented and which are campfire lore.
British English dodged some of this confusion by calling the whole family "patience," but the Windows era spread the American usage nearly everywhere.
When the difference actually matters
Day to day, it doesn't. Say solitaire, everyone understands you. The distinction earns its keep in a few situations:
Searching for rules or apps. "Solitaire rules" can land you on Spider or Pyramid instructions that contradict the game you play. Searching "Klondike" gets you the right rules the first time.
Reading win-rate claims. Statements like "80% of solitaire games are winnable" are meaningless without naming the game; that figure belongs to Klondike specifically, and Klondike draw 3 at that. Numbers for Spider or FreeCell are wildly different. See odds of winning for the actual research.
Talking settings. Turn 1 versus turn 3, Vegas scoring, one deck or two: these are all choices within Klondike. Our turn 1 vs turn 3 page covers the one that trips people up most.
Once you leave Klondike, the names stop being interchangeable fast. Nobody calls Spider "solitaire" without the Spider in front, exactly because it isn't the default game.
FAQ
Is Klondike solitaire the same as regular solitaire?
Yes. The game people call "regular" or "classic" solitaire, seven columns, red on black, drawing from a stock, is Klondike. The word solitaire technically names the whole family of one-player card games, but in everyday American English it defaults to this one member. Same game, two names.
Why is solitaire called Klondike?
The name is tied by tradition to the Klondike gold rush in Canada's Yukon in the 1890s, with the story that prospectors played it in mining camps. The game shows up under that name in American game books of the early 1900s. Like a lot of card game origins, the details are part history, part legend.
Are the rules of solitaire and Klondike different?
No, when "solitaire" means the classic game, the rules are identical because it is Klondike. Rules only differ when solitaire refers to a different family member: Spider builds runs in the tableau with no foundations during play, Pyramid removes pairs adding to thirteen, FreeCell deals everything face up.
What was the solitaire game on Windows?
Klondike, drawing one card at a time by default, with optional draw 3 and Vegas scoring. Microsoft shipped it with Windows 3.0 in 1990, partly to teach people mouse skills like drag and drop. It's the single biggest reason "solitaire" now means this specific game to most of the world.