Tangram is one of the most popular puzzle games in the world and the game was originated in China several centuries ago. Unfortunately, there are not much historical documents to trace the origin and development of Tangram in China. Some argue that the game's history can't be traced because Tangram was played by women and children in ancient China.
However, there are many great games that we play today that were originated in China but can't be traced back to the game's origin. This may be due to the oriental dynasties where games were mostly restricted to the members of the royal family. Outsiders often didn't have access to games or they were not aware of the origin and development.

However, there is a beautiful story about the origin of Tangram that is spread among Chinese. Even though the legend about the origin of Tangram is not supported with any scientific evidences, the story has a huge fan base all over the world due to the beautiful storyline.
According to the story, there lived a man named Tan in Ancient China. He was a big fan of ceramic tiles which were popular in Chinese architecture and one day, he was carrying a ceramic tile to the great emperor.

To Tan's surprise, the tile fell off from his hands and it was broken into pieces. Tan was very disappointed and worried about a remedy. Suddenly, he noticed one thing! The tile is broken into seven pieces and all broken pieces are in geometrical shapes.
There are two large triangles and one medium size triangle along with two small triangles. The other two shapes were a square and a parallelogram. This left Tan with a new idea. He wanted to try if it is possible to rejoin these pieces and create the tile. Even though he tried it several times, he was not successful in rejoining the pieces to create a single tile.

However, Tan was successful in creating several interesting shapes and he came up with several geometric shapes. This is the story behind the origin of Tangram and there is no doubt that Tangram is one of the oldest puzzle games in history. There is no doubt that Tangrams are one of the oldest geometrical puzzles in the world and the game is enjoyed by audience all over the world. However, the historic reference to the game can be traced back only up to 1813, and this was during the Jiaquing dynasty.
Tangram is one of the oldest geometrical puzzles that were introduced to the Western world and the game enjoys very good popularity from early 19th century. The game was brought to America on Chinese and American ships and the earliest example was in 1802, even before any written documentation of the game was discovered.

The world Tangram was first used by Thomas Hill the president of Harvard University in 1848. The author and mathematician Lewis Carroll is one of the first recognized celebrity players of the game and he owned a Chinese book that contained more than 300 designs of the game.
Even famous French dictator Napoleon said to have owned a Tangram book during his exile on the island of St. Helena. San Loyd came up with a spoof of Tangram history and his book had more than 700 puzzles but some of them were not solvable at all. Even though some puzzles looked quite similar, one may be incomplete and observing this difference is quite difficult for novices. This is where the fun of Tangram lies and this is exactly why many people are attracted to this game every day.