The tangram is a dissection puzzle consisting of seven flat shapes, called tans, which are put together to form shapes. The objective of the puzzle is to form a specific shape (given only in outline or silhouette) using all seven pieces, which may not overlap.
The Tangram may have roots in the yanjitu furniture set of the Song Dynasty (year 1000). This furniture set saw some variation during the Ming Dynasty, and later became a set of wooden blocks for playing.
An estimate of ten million possible "fully matched" configurations has been offered,[9] where "fully matched" means that at least one edge and at least one vertex of any piece is matched to an edge and vertex of another.
In Germany, the game is not as widespread, but you can find complete tangram boxes, booklets and kits in every well sorted wholesalers.