Why are there 52 cards in a Deck?

A standard deck of playing cards consists of 52 Cards and four suits every suit contains thirteen cards: Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, and King.

Why Are There 52 Cards?

Thus, 52 cards deck basically consists of 4 suits: hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs. Each suit further contains 13 cards: 10 ace cards (A to 10) and 3 picture cards: Jack, Queen, and King. 2 suits (hearts and diamonds) in red color and another 2 (spades and clubs) in black.

There are numerous theories behind this, none of which have) properly proven, but they are interesting nonetheless. The four suits represent the four seasons, while the 52 cards represent the 52 weeks during a year. The 13 cards per suit represent the 13 Lunar cycles. This belief won't be far away, because the Arabic world was very proficient in astronomy, and should have set a universal standard for an increasingly popular and globe-traveling world, based on something that everyone could understand.

Brief History of Playing Cards

More than 600 years ago, playing cards were first introduced to the fringes of European society, possibly from the center East, because it was once referred to as the “Moorish game”.
The playing cards were an opportunity to reflect a bit of your culture, and possibly spread that information or art to other parts of the world. For example, playing cards were extremely popular for soldiers, as they were easy to hold and enabled universal rules for gambling. When those first Europeans came in touch with playing cards, they also had 4 suits – Chalice, Sword, Money, and Baton.  However, this didn’t translate significantly well in Italy, Spain, Germany, England, and France.


Later on, Germanic countries switched suits to Hearts, Acorns, Bells and Leaves, while France and England went with Hearts, Spades, Diamonds, and Clubs – in other words, the suits that most of us are familiar with. These came to be referred to as “French playing cards”, and also include the three face cards.

Each face card in a deck of playing cards is claimed to represent a great person from history:

King of Spades – David
King of Hearts – Charles
King of Clubs – Alexander the Great
Queen of Spades – Pallas
Queen of Hearts – Judith
Queen of Diamonds – Rachel
Queen of Clubs – Argine
Knave (Jack) of Spades – Ogier the Dane/Holger Danske
Knave (Jack) of Hearts – La Hire Knave (Jack) of Diamonds – Hector
Knave (Jack) of Clubs – Judas Maccabeus, or Lancelot

Conclusion:

52 cards  -  the 52 weeks during a year
4 suits     -  the 4 seasons
13 cards  -  the 13 weeks in each season
12 Royals - the 12 months
2 red  and 2 black suits represent the 4 different solstices

The 4 suits also represent the four natural elements
Hearts = Water
Clubs = Fire
Diamonds = Earth
Spades = Air