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Bowling is a general term referring to a range of sports in which a player rolls or throws a ball towards a set of pins or other objects, trying to knock down as many as possible. A related group of sports are boules, in which the balls are thrown or rolled towards a target, the aim is usually to get the ball or other object as close to a mark as possible.

Pin Bowling Variants

Tenpin bowling is currently the most popular form of bowling, though other versions are popular in some parts of the world, or have been at some stage.

• Candlepin — a type of bowling like tenpin bowling using candlepins and smaller balls
• Duckpin — a type of 10-pin bowling, though with smaller balls.
• Five-pin — a bowling variant from Canada with smaller balls and only 5 pins
• Kegel — is a German nine-pin bowling game played in Australia
• Nine Pin — a variation of bowling with only 9 pins set up in a diamond pattern.
• Skittles — a precursor to many bowling games, it is an indoor sport in a bowling alley, using one or more heavy balls to knock down nine skittles.
• Tenpin — a player rolls a bowling ball along a wooden or synthetic lane to knock down pins.
• Turkey Bowling — a frozen turkey serves as a bowling ball and 10 plastic bottles of soft drinks or water are the bowling pins.
• Basque Bowling

tenpin bowling pins

Throwing a bat at Pins

• Finnish Skittles — opposing players take turns to knock down their opponent's skittles by throwing a bat.
• Gorodki — a folk sport from Russia, where competitors strike down a group of cylindrical wooden objects by throwing a bat.
• Kubb — a lawn game where the object is to knock over wooden blocks ('kubbs') by throwing wooden batons at them.
• Mölkky — players use a wooden pin (also called "mölkky") to try to knock over wooden pins.
• Bunnock — a kind of skittles game that is played with bones (commonly known as "Game of Bones")

Similar Sports

• Lagori — from Southern India, this game involves a ball and a pile of flat stones. A member of one team throws a soft ball at a pile of stones to knock them over, then tries to restore the pile of stones while the opposing team throws the ball at them (also known as Lingocha).

Related Pages

• What is bowling called in other languages?
• List of Boules Sports
• Complete list of sports
• The Encyclopedia of Sports

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