LEGO is a line of plastic construction toys manufactured by The LEGO Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company’s flagship product, LEGO, consists of colorful interlocking plastic bricks accompanying an array of gears, figurines called mini-figures, and various other parts. It is without doubt one of the most popular and bestselling toys of all time and is a household name all over the world. For that matter, in 2015, The LEGO Group became the world’s largest toy company, even surpassing Mattel. But that should not be all that surprising considering the fact LEGO toys are fun for children and adults of all ages, and the company has an incredible history dating back over eighty years. It’s very possible that right now you could easily find some bricks or mini-figures in your home or worse, you may have recently accidentally stepped on one of the pieces with your bare foot and can still feel the pain from that unpleasant experience. So how many facts do you know about LEGO toys? If your answer is “none”, “not many”” or anything similar, don’t worry, because you are about to learn 25 Fun Facts About LEGO You Might Enjoy Toying With.
The LEGO Group was founded in 1932 in Denmark. It started in a small carpenter’s workshop and is now one of the world’s largest toy manufacturers.
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LEGO’s founder, Ole Kirk Christiansen, created the name “LEGO” from the first two letters of the Danish words LEG GODT, which means “play well.”
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In 2000, LEGO was named “Toy of the Century” by the British Association of Toy Retailers. LEGO beat both the common teddy bear and Barbie.
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In May 2011, the space shuttle Endeavour mission STS-134 brought thirteen LEGO kits to the International Space Station, where astronauts built models to see how they would react in microgravity, as a part of the LEGO Bricks in Space program. The results will be shared with schools as part of an educational project.
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According to Forbes, in February 2015 LEGO replaced Ferrari as Brand Finance’s “world’s most powerful brand.”
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More than 400 billion LEGO bricks have been produced since 1958, which means there are about sixty-two LEGO bricks for each human being on the planet.
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It is estimated that during Christmas about twenty-eight sets are sold every second. That means 1,680 are sold every minute, 100,800 every hour, and so on.
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It might sound unbelievable but only eighteen pieces in one million are wasted during the production process. The molds are super accurate so only a handful fail to meet the company’s high quality standards.
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The largest commercially produced LEGO set is the Taj Majal. The set contains over 5,900 pieces.
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If you’ve ever wondered why there aren’t any blond mini-figures in the regular LEGO sets, the reason isn’t because the manufacturers don’t like blondes, but because they believe they would look bad with the yellow heads. However, there are still blond figures in the licensed lines, such as Star Wars or Harry Potter.
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There are artists who sculpt exclusively using LEGOs. For example, Nathan Sawaya, a New York–based artist, was the first artist to bring LEGOs into the art world and currently has a touring exhibition called “The Art of the Brick.”
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In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a hole in the head of the mini-figures now. According to the manufacturers, LEGO added this hole to the top of each head just in case a child accidentally got one stuck in their throat. That way they would still be able to breathe.
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Students at John Dickinson High School in Delaware built the world’s largest LEGO tower in August 2013. It stands 112 feet and eleven stories high and contains over 500,000 bricks.
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In 2009, a man named James May in Surrey, England, constructed the world’s first full-size LEGO house, using 3.3 million bricks. The house contained a working toilet, a shower, and a bed all made of LEGOs.
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You can combine six of the eight-studded LEGO bricks in 915,103,765 ways.
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LEGO bricks are part of a “universal system,” which means that regardless of the year they were made and the set they belong to, each piece is compatible with other existing pieces. In other words, the bricks made way back in 1958 will fit perfectly with those you play with today.
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The first version of LEGO MINDSTORMS was launched in 1998, based on a collaboration between The LEGO Group and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Two further versions have been released, one in 2006 and the other in 2013.
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The first mini-figure was produced in 1978. Since then more than four billion have been made, making it the world’s largest population group.
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Each mini-figure is exactly four bricks high without a hat.
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According to the numbers, 2012 was the most productive year in the company’s history so far: 45.7 billion LEGO bricks were produced at a rate of 5.2 million per hour. Or if you prefer, if you were to lay them from end to end, the number of LEGO bricks sold that year would stretch around the world more than eighteen times.
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LEGO DUPLO bricks are eight times the size of original LEGO bricks but somehow they both connect together.
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LEGO is the world’s largest wheel manufacturer. Sure, they’re mini wheels, but still the company produces 306 million a year, which is more than what Bridgestone and Goodyear produce combined.
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Star Wars was the first intellectual property to be licensed in LEGO Group history. The first few sets based on the original trilogy were released in 1999, coinciding with the release of The Phantom Menace.
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Germany is the number-one LEGO market worldwide. In fact, LEGO is the biggest-selling toy company in Germany. The United States is the second-largest market, with the top-selling lines being BIONICLE and LEGO Star Wars.
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There are no LEGO sets with a war or military theme. This is because LEGO creator Ole Kirk Christiansen didn’t want to make war seem appealing to children.
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