Snowboarding is a boardsport on snow similar to skiing, but inspired by surfing and skateboarding. Snowboarding is an increasingly popular winter sport throughout the world.

The sport was developed in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s and became a Winter Olympic Sport in 1998.

The history of the snowboard started with pioneers like Dimitrije Milovich, Bob Webber, Jake Burton Carpenter, Brandon Bridwell, Tom Sims, Mike Olson, Donavin Carlberg, Chuck Barfoot, Chris Sanders, Steve Derrah developing prototypes mainly inspired by surfboards in the 1970s.

During the early years of the sport, snowboards and snowboarders were not widely respected by the ski industry and culture. Snowboarding was seen as a fad. Snowboarders were referred by an assortment of derogatory nicknames.

Sherman Poppen was the inventor of the first commercially produced snowboard, the Snurfer.

The growing popularity of the sport is reflected by the history of snowboarding as an official sport: In 1985 the first World Cup was held in Zürs, Austria. Due to the need for universal contest regulations, the ISA (International Snowboard Association) was founded in 1994.

Ollie: The fundamental freestyle maneuver is the ollie; an ollie is essential for most tricks.

Switch: This term is adopted from skateboarding and refers to riding a snowboard with the opposite stance (i.e. goofy instead of regular). Because of the twin-directional nature of most snowboards used today, riding switch is nearly the same as riding fakie.