What are the best or most popular periodicals or magazines on
recreational math (if any).  I'm looking for recreational mathematics,
not any more specific genre of math.

Hello and thank you for your question.  

Nothing beats the great Martin Gardner's many years of contributions
to his Mathematical Games column in Scientific American Magazine
https://enterprise.maa.org/ecomtpro/Timssnet/products/TNT_products.cfm?primary_id=TDG&secondary_id=null&Subsystem=ORD&action=long&format=table
http://www.ansible.co.uk/misc/mgardner.html
http://www.rei.com/product/47796149.htm

For current magazines, most of the following are geared towards the
teaching of mathematics, but because recreational math is an important
motivator in that area you'll find many useful articles:

Journal of Recreational Mathematics
http://www.baywood.com/journals/PreviewJournals.asp?Id=0022-412x

Mathematics Teacher
http://my.nctm.org/eresources/journal_home.asp?journal_id=2

New York Journal of Mathematics 
http://nyjm.albany.edu:8000/nyjm.html

Mathematics Magazine
http://www.maa.org/pubs/mathmag.html

Mathematics Teaching
http://www.atm.org.uk/journals/mathematicsteaching.html

American Mathematical Monthly
http://www.maa.org/pubs/monthly.html

School Science and Mathematics 
http://oregonstate.edu/pubs/ssm/

Thanks again for letting us help, and for giving me the opportunity to
post my 300th answer as a Google Answers Researcher!

Sincerely,
Richard-ga

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Clarification of Answer by richard-ga on 26 May 2005 07:04 PDT

More from Martin Gardner:
http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/gardner-booklist.html

Search terms used:
bibliography "recreational mathematics" "scientific american"

-R

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Clarification of Answer by richard-ga on 26 May 2005 07:11 PDT

Recreational Mathematics - Bibliography
http://www.math.fau.edu/locke/Courses/Rec-Math/biblio.htm

thanks.