The four foundations (light rectangles in the upper right of the figure) are built up by suit from Ace (low in this game) to King, and the tableau piles can be built down by alternate colors. The remaining cards form the stock and are placed facedown at the upper left of the layout. The topmost card of each pile is turned face up. The first and left-most pile contains a single upturned card, the second pile contains two cards (one downturned, one upturned), the third contains three (two downturned, one upturned), and so on, until the seventh pile which contains seven cards (six downturned, one upturned). From left to right, each pile contains one more card than the last. After shuffling, a tableau of seven fanned piles of cards are laid from left to right. Klondike is played with a standard 52-card deck, without Jokers. It is rumored that the game was either created or popularized by the prospectors in Klondike. The game rose to fame in the late 19th century, being named 'Klondike' after the Canadian region where a gold rush happened.

and Canada, Klondike is the best-known solitaire card game, to the point that the term 'solitaire', in the absence of additional qualifiers, typically refers to Klondike.