Petanque, Boules or Bocce: Which is It?

When Patty, Joe and I were at the Arenes de Lutece, we saw a group of men playing a game with metal balls. So we wondered: what is the difference between boules, petanque and bocce?

Here is the short answer: They are all related and have a common ancestry from ancient games played in the Roman Empire. Boules apparently is the generic name for all of these games, including Petanque, Bocce, and the British version, Lawn Bowling.

If you want to know a little more:
Boules (technically "Jeu de Boules" or "game of balls) is a collective name for games played with metal balls.

Pétanque is a form of boules where the goal is to throw metal balls as close as possible to a small wooden ball called a cochonnet (jack). The game is normally played on hard dirt or gravel. Pétanque is generally associated with southern France, particularly Provence. The casual form of the game of Pétanque is played by about 17 million people in France (mostly during their summer vacations). There are about 375,000 players licensed with the Fédération Française de Pétanque et Jeu Provençal, which is the 4th-largest sporting federation in France.

It is reputed to have been invented in 1907 in the town of La Ciotat near Marseilles as a less physically-demanding form of jeu provençal. Physical effort was reduced by shortening the length of the pitch by roughly half and replacing a moving delivery with a stationary one. The name is derived from the term pés tanqués, which in the Provençal language means "stuck feet", because in Pétanque the feet have to remain fixed together within a (small) circle. Pétanque has become so popular that the term Jeu de Boules is often used to refer to it, even though Pétanque is only one of several variants of boules and one of the newest.

Bocce was developed into its present form in Italy. It is played around Europe and also in overseas countries that have received Italian migrants, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil and Argentina (where it is known as bochas), initially amongst the migrants themselves but slowly becoming more popular with their descendants and the wider community. Bocce is played on soil, oyster shell or asphalt courts, sometimes with wooden boards surrounding the court. Bocce balls can be made of bronze or various kinds of plastic. Unlike lawn bowls, bocce balls are spherical and have no inbuilt bias. The Confederation Mondiale des Sports de Boules, based in France, is the international organization for the sport of bocce.

Bowls (also known as Lawn Bowls or Lawn Bowling or its true name "crown green bowls") is another variant in which the goal is to roll slightly radially asymmetrical balls (called bowls) closer to a smaller white ball (the "jack") than one's opponent does. Unlike bocce and petanque, it is always played on grass (or, if indoor, on artificial grass). It is most popular in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and in other Commonwealth nations.

Want to Know Even More? If you want to know more, including how the rules or the dimensions of the courts and balls differ, you'll have to look it up yourself!