Kho-Kho Court Dimensions
Official AKFI Kho-Kho court measurements for senior and junior formats
Kho-Kho Court Dimensions
Official AKFI Kho-Kho court measurements for senior and junior formats
What are the Official Kho-Kho Court Dimensions?
Kho-Kho is one of India's oldest traditional sports, played on a rectangular court measuring 29 metres long and 16 metres wide (including a 1.5-metre lobby on each side). The court is divided into two equal halves by a central lane running the full length, with 8 wooden poles (post sticks) evenly spaced along this central lane. The attacking team's chasers sit alternately facing opposite directions between these poles — a unique formation seen in no other sport in the world.
The Amateur Kho-Kho Federation of India (AKFI) and the Asian Kho-Kho Federation standardise court dimensions for national and international play. The court surface is typically natural grass or synthetic turf, kept flat without any markings except the boundary lines, central lane, and free zone at each end. The two wooden poles at each end (the post sticks) are the turning points for the active chaser — touching a post costs no time but changes direction of pursuit.
The sport gained mainstream attention with the Ultimate Kho-Kho (UKK) franchise league launched in 2022, India's first professional Kho-Kho league. This revival brought standardised court specifications into focus for facility builders across India. Kho-Kho requires minimal equipment and infrastructure compared to other sports — a properly dimensioned court, 16 post sticks, and boundary markings are all that is needed.
How to Read This Diagram
Key Court Zones
- • Central lane: 30cm wide, full length — chasers seated alternately here
- • Free zone (end): 2.75m deep at each end — active chaser turns around post here
- • Lobby: 1.5m each side — in play for defenders, not chasers (until direction change)
- • Post sticks: 8 poles at 2.30m intervals — chasers cannot cross these, must go around
- • Playing area: 26m × 13m inner rectangle — the core active zone
Why the Pole Layout Is the Whole Game in Kho-Kho
Kho-Kho's court isn't just a boundary — the 8 poles spaced along the central lane are what actually create the sport's signature chase-and-dodge gameplay. Because a chaser physically cannot cut through a pole and must go around it, the poles force predictable turning points into an otherwise free-for-all pursuit, which is exactly what gives skilled defenders room to fake a direction change and exploit the half-second it takes a chaser to commit to going around one side or the other.
The lobby areas work the same way as their equivalent in kabaddi: they're dead space until a genuine chase is underway, at which point they open up as real playing area. This dual nature means the court's effective size actually changes moment to moment during a match, even though the marked dimensions themselves never move.
?Frequently Asked Questions
The 8 wooden poles (post sticks) along the central lane are the structural heart of Kho-Kho's tactical game. Sitting chasers position themselves between these poles, and the active chaser must navigate around them — they cannot pass through a pole. The poles create natural barriers that force chasers to commit to a direction, which defenders exploit to create unpredictable movement patterns. The two end posts serve as turning points — the active chaser touches an end post to reverse direction of pursuit.
Both are traditional Indian contact sports but with fundamentally different mechanics. In Kabaddi, a single raider crosses into the opponent's half and must tag defenders while chanting "kabaddi" continuously before returning. In Kho-Kho, 9 chasers and 3 defenders are on court simultaneously — chasers pursue defenders as a relay team, with the active chaser tagging a seated colleague ("Kho!") to transfer the pursuit role. Kho-Kho is faster and more continuous, while Kabaddi is more confrontational and individual.
Ultimate Kho-Kho (UKK) is India's first professional Kho-Kho franchise league, launched in August 2022 by the Kho-Kho Federation of India in partnership with Amit Burman. The inaugural season featured 6 franchise teams playing at Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex in Pune. The league attracted significant television coverage and helped introduce standardised court and equipment specifications to a new generation of facility builders. The UKK follows AKFI court specifications exactly.
The junior format uses a smaller court to match the shorter stride length and lower top speed of younger players, keeping the chase-and-dodge dynamic proportionate to their physical development rather than forcing them to cover adult-sized ground. Pole spacing is scaled down accordingly, so the tactical geometry of the game — how quickly a chaser can commit to a direction around a pole — stays broadly similar even though the absolute distances shrink.
The 1.5m lobby on each long side is live playing area for defenders at all times, but active chasers may only enter it while changing direction at an end post — not during open pursuit across the main court. This asymmetry is deliberate: it gives a fleeing defender an escape strip the chaser can't freely follow into, while still keeping the lobby inside the boundary for scoring and out-of-bounds purposes.
Regulation pole sticks stand 120–125cm tall and 9–10cm in diameter, traditionally turned from wood, though synthetic/composite poles are now common in professional venues for durability and weather resistance. The height is set to be comfortably grabbable at speed — tall enough to be visible and structurally stable, short enough that a chaser can plant a hand on top while pivoting around it without breaking stride.
AKFI rules permit natural grass or synthetic turf, provided the surface is flat and free of elevation changes across the entire playing area — any dip or crown would give chasers or defenders an uneven footing advantage depending on which side of it they're on. Professional and franchise-league venues (including Ultimate Kho-Kho) increasingly use synthetic turf specifically for the surface consistency it guarantees match to match, regardless of weather.