Tangram, also called jigsaw puzzle, is one of the many toys invented by Chinese in ancient times. Literally, it means seven pieces of plank. With one Tangram in hand, you can picture more than 1,600 different kinds images include people, animals, bridges, houses, towers and so on. How has this magical toy invented? Here is an interesting story.

It is said that in the Song dynasty, there was a man named Huang Bosi who was interested in geometry. He had lots of friends and he liked to invite them to his house for dinner. But it was difficult to find a proper table every time, so he invented an “Yanji” which are a combination of 6 little tables. With the “Yanji” , he can compose a triangle table when there are 3 people, a square table when there are 4 and so on.

Then someone turned the “Yanji” to a kind of toy. As the tangram is very ingenious, so it called “Qiqiaoban” in Chinese, which means seven pieces of ingenious boards. In the late Ming dynasty and early Qing Dynasty, the Tangram is used to celebrate festivals and entertainments in imperial families. You can even find a Tangram in the Forbidden City now!