The tangram is an intellectual puzzle game, originated in China. It consists of seven pieces, in the shapes of triangles and quadrilaterals. Tangrams were called 七巧板 or "Chi-Chiao Pan", meaning "the seven intriguing pieces". The objective of the puzzle game is to form a designated pattern using all the seven pieces together. There are many patterns which may be formed from the tangram pieces. These include basic geometric patterns, shapes of animals, and various common objects.

The tangram is one of the historical disection puzzles originating from imperial China.

Various tangram patterns may be form the simple geometric pieces of the tangram puzzle.

"New Figures of the Tangram" by Shan-Chiao, was published in China in 1815, which contained 374 tangram patterns.

These documentations were written during the reign of emperor Chia-Ching, during the time when tangrams were at the summit of its popularity in China.

Known to the Chinese as the "wisdom puzzle", tangrams have been well-known to the western world since the 19th century.

Well-known people, such as Edgar Allan Poe, Napoleon, H.E.Dudeney, and Sam Loyd have all shown great interest in tangrams.

By 1817, tangrams had gain popularity in Europe and America. In fact, the word tangram officially appeared in Webster's dictionary in 1864.

The tangram puzzle set is composed of seven pieces. Each of these piece is called a tan. One of the piece is a square, another piece is a rhomboid, and the other five pieces are isosceles right triangles of various sizes.

Of these triangular pieces, two are small size triangles, one is a medium sized triangle and two are large size triangle.

The area of a large size triangle is twice the area of the medium size triangle. The area of the medium size triangle is twice the area of an small size triangle. The area of the square is also twice the area of an small size triangle.

The area of the rhomboid is the same as that of the square. All the angles in these pieces are either 45, 90 or

135 degrees. Making a tangram set from a piece of

square board is easy.

A tangram can be made of thick cardboard, felt, foam sheets, magnetic sheets, wood and more, the choice is yours. You need a square sheet of the material you choose to use: 12 x 12 cm is fine, a marker and a scissor The Chinese made them from these ordinary materials as well as precious metals, mother of pearl or ivory.