The History of Jigsaw Puzzles
By Giftenova Team – Last updated June 12, 2026
The jigsaw puzzle was invented in 1760s London, where mapmaker John Spilsbury mounted maps on thin wood and cut them apart along country borders as geography teaching tools. From that classroom origin, the puzzle became a Victorian parlor pastime, a Great Depression craze, and a modern competitive sport. This history traces each chapter, including why the name "jigsaw" is technically wrong.
Jigsaw Puzzle History at a Glance
| Era | What Happened |
|---|---|
| 1760s | John Spilsbury sells "dissected maps": wooden maps cut along borders for teaching geography |
| 1800s | Puzzles spread from classrooms to parlors; adult picture puzzles join children's maps |
| 1880s | Treadle-powered saws speed up cutting and give the "jigsaw" its name |
| Late 1800s onward | Cardboard and die-cutting turn a wooden luxury into an affordable mass product |
| Early 1930s | The Great Depression craze peaks at roughly ten million puzzles sold per week |
| 2020s | Lockdowns drive record demand; speed-puzzling championships and custom photo puzzles define the modern era |
Who Invented the Jigsaw Puzzle?
John Spilsbury, a London cartographer and engraver, is credited with the first commercial jigsaw puzzles in the 1760s. He pasted printed maps onto thin mahogany sheets and cut along the borders of countries with a fine-bladed saw, so students could learn geography by reassembling Europe kingdom by kingdom. He called them "dissected maps," and the name stuck for over a century.
The idea sold well enough that by the end of the 1700s, London had a small industry of puzzle makers serving schoolrooms and wealthy families. The product was educational, wooden, hand-cut, and expensive, three of which would eventually change. The first thing to change was the name.
Why Is It Called a Jigsaw Puzzle?
The name "jigsaw" arrived in the 1880s, when treadle-powered saws made puzzle cutting far faster. The name is technically a misnomer: the tool in question was a fretsaw, not a jigsaw. Before then, puzzles were sold as "dissections" or "dissected maps." The wrong name outlived the correction, and the older term survives today in a niche word: devoted puzzle enthusiasts are still called dissectologists.
Faster cutting also pushed puzzles beyond maps, toward landscapes, paintings, and illustrated scenes for adults. What kept them a luxury was the material, and that barrier fell next.
From Wooden Luxury to Cardboard for Everyone
Cardboard backing appeared in the late 1800s and rewired the economics of the puzzle. A printed image glued to cardboard could be cut by a die press in one stroke instead of one piece at a time. That collapsed both the cost and the production time. Wooden, hand-cut puzzles persisted as a premium tier, but the affordable cardboard puzzle became the default format, and it still is.
The full production story, from steel-rule dies to today's pre-cut blank printing, is in our guide on how jigsaw puzzles are made. Cheap puzzles arrived just in time for the moment that made them a national habit.
The Great Depression Puzzle Boom
The early 1930s produced the biggest puzzle craze in history. With unemployment climbing past 25 percent, puzzles offered hours of affordable entertainment and a rare sense of accomplishment. Sales peaked in early 1933 at roughly ten million puzzles per week, a figure documented in the Los Angeles Public Library's puzzle history. Most of that flood was advertising puzzles given away with products; weekly newsstand puzzles and puzzle rentals filled out the habit.
Puzzle historian Anne D. Williams, who documented the era in her book on the puzzle's history, describes a 300-piece die-cut puzzle selling for as little as 25 cents. The craze faded with the economy, but the puzzle stayed a household fixture for the rest of the century, waiting for its next boom.
The Modern Renaissance: Lockdowns, Speed Puzzling, and Personal Photos
The 2020 lockdowns triggered the puzzle's third great surge, with manufacturers reporting record demand as households rediscovered screen-free evenings. The boom left two lasting marks. The first is competitive. Speed puzzling grew into an organized sport, and the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship, first held in 2019 in Valladolid, Spain, now draws solvers from dozens of countries.
The second mark is personal. Printing technology now lets one puzzle be made from one uploaded image: the format Spilsbury used to teach Europe's borders can now carry your family photo as a made-to-order personalized photo gift. Every count is in our custom photo puzzles collection, and the modern format landscape is mapped in our guide to the types of jigsaw puzzles. The puzzle even has its own date on the calendar now, with National Puzzle Day each January 29.
Jigsaw Puzzle World Records
The format's scale records are striking. The most pieces in a jigsaw puzzle is 551,232, assembled by 1,600 students in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in 2011, and the largest by area measured 6,122.68 square meters (65,905 square feet), completed in Dubai in 2018, both per Guinness World Records. The largest widely sold puzzles run about 60,000 pieces.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who invented the jigsaw puzzle?
John Spilsbury, a London mapmaker and engraver, created the first commercial jigsaw puzzles in the 1760s. He mounted maps on thin mahogany and cut them along country borders, selling them as "dissected maps" for teaching geography.
When were jigsaw puzzles invented?
In the 1760s, in London. Puzzles stayed wooden, hand-cut, and expensive for over a century; cardboard backing and die-cutting in the late 1800s turned them into the affordable mass product we know today.
Why are they called jigsaw puzzles?
After the treadle-powered saws that sped up puzzle cutting in the 1880s, though the name is a misnomer: those saws were fretsaws. Earlier puzzles were sold as "dissections," which is why puzzle enthusiasts are still called dissectologists.
What were the first jigsaw puzzles used for?
Teaching geography. Spilsbury's dissected maps let students learn countries and borders by physically reassembling them, and educational map puzzles remained the format's core use through its first decades.