Editing End zone (section)

{{short description|Scoring area on the field in gridiron football}}
{{About|the football term|the novel|End Zone}}
{{More citations needed|date=September 2011}}

[[File:120107-LA-USC-UCLA05-TDMcKnight.jpg|thumb|right|250px|A player rushes into the red-painted end zone, scoring a touchdown during a [[USC Trojans football|USC]] college football game.]]
The '''end zone''' is the [[Goal (sport)|scoring area]] on the field, according to [[gridiron football|gridiron-based codes of football]]. It is the area between the [[End Line (gridiron football)|end line]] and [[Goal line (gridiron football)|goal line]] bounded by the [[sidelines]].  There are two end zones, each being on the opposite side of the field. It is bordered on all sides by a white line indicating its beginning and end points, with orange, square pylons placed at each of the four corners as a visual aid (however, prior to around the early 1970s, flags were used instead to denote the end zone). Canadian rule books use the terms ''goal area'' and ''dead line'' instead of ''end zone'' and ''end line'' respectively, but the latter terms are the more common in colloquial Canadian English. Unlike sports like [[association football]] and [[ice hockey]] which require the ball/puck to pass completely over the goal line to count as a score, both Canadian and American football merely need any part of the ball to break the vertical plane of the outer edge of the goal line.

A similar concept exists in both [[rugby football]] codes, where it is known as the ''in-goal area''. The difference between rugby and gridiron-based codes is that in rugby, the ball must be touched to the ground in the in-goal area to count as a [[Try (rugby)|try]] (the rugby equivalent of a touchdown), whereas in the gridiron-based games, simply possessing the ball in or over the end zone is sufficient to count as a touchdown.

[[Ultimate frisbee]] also uses an end zone scoring area.  Scores in this sport are counted when a pass is received in the end zone.