Play Tangram geometric puzzle game free in your browser. Arrange 7 pieces to match target shapes. No download required.
A tangram set consists of seven flat pieces called tans: two large right triangles, one medium right triangle, two small right triangles, one square, and one parallelogram. All seven pieces must be used in every puzzle. They cannot overlap, but they must fit together without gaps to fill the target silhouette exactly. Rotating and flipping pieces is allowed. The parallelogram is the only piece with a distinct mirror image, which sometimes causes confusion about which orientation is needed.
Start by placing the two large triangles, since they occupy the most area and constrain where smaller pieces can go. Identify distinctive features of the silhouette, such as pointed tips or concave notches, and match them to the triangles' corners. Work inward from the edges. If a placement creates an awkward interior space that none of the remaining pieces can fill, undo and try a different orientation. Patience with trial and error pays off more than overthinking.
Tangram originated in China and reached Europe and North America by the early nineteenth century, arriving on trading ships. By the 1810s it was a fashionable parlor puzzle in Britain and the United States, with books of tangram silhouettes published for enthusiastic amateurs. Napoleon Bonaparte is among the historical figures said to have played with tangrams during his exile on Saint Helena. The puzzle's simplicity of materials combined with its enormous variety of possible shapes gave it lasting appeal across very different cultures.
In this version you drag each of the seven tans into position and click a piece to rotate it, cycling its orientation a step at a time. Because the controls expose rotation directly, the usual stumbling block is orientation rather than placement. Every triangle has rotational symmetry that repeats, so spinning through a full circle returns you to where you started; if a corner refuses to seat, the issue is usually the piece's handedness, not its angle. The parallelogram is the one tan with a true mirror image, so a silhouette built for its flipped form cannot be filled by rotation alone. When a target shape looks impossible, suspect the parallelogram first and check whether the design expects its reflected orientation. Use the Check button to confirm a near-complete layout, and the Pieces counter to track how many tans you still have to place.
The puzzle selector lets you switch between target silhouettes, and difficulty scales with how much the outline hides the seams between pieces. Easy shapes show convex outlines where the two large triangles obviously anchor opposite ends, while harder figures use concave notches and long thin limbs that disguise which tan fills each region. Animal and human figures are typically tougher than geometric shapes because a single leg or tail may be one small triangle pointing in a non-obvious direction. A reliable difficulty cue is the number of acute points in the outline: more sharp tips means more triangle corners must align precisely. When a new puzzle stalls you, place the two large triangles first to fix the overall footprint, then fit the square and small triangles into the remaining gaps. Next Puzzle cycles you to a fresh silhouette to practice on.
Yes. A valid tangram solution always uses all seven tans with no overlaps and no gaps inside the silhouette. If you fill the shape but a piece is left in the tray, the layout is incomplete and Check will not register it as solved.
Clicking rotates a piece through its orientations. The triangles and square look identical when flipped, so rotation covers them. Only the parallelogram has a distinct mirror form, so puzzles needing its reflection rely on the orientation steps the click control cycles through to reach the flipped position.
Usually a piece overlaps a neighbor slightly or sits just outside the target edge. The pieces must tile the silhouette exactly. Drag each tan tight against its neighbors and use Check; the parallelogram seated in its wrong handedness is the most common culprit.
Start with the two large right triangles. They cover the most area and pin down the overall footprint of the shape, leaving the medium triangle, square, two small triangles, and parallelogram to fill the smaller remaining regions where there is far less ambiguity about where each goes.
Yes. Every silhouette in the puzzle selector is designed to be assembled from exactly the standard seven-tan set. There is no shape included that requires an extra piece or leaves one over, so persistence with rotation and placement will always yield a solution.