Thank you to the LEGO® Group for sending us a fantastic Anniversary box of LEGO bricks. The honest opinions stated in this post are 100% mine.

60 fun LEGO facts every LEGO fan needs to know

Our kids had a BLAST building creatively with the bricks contained in the LEGO Anniversary box, while I read them fun and interesting LEGO facts and trivia. It was a great learning experience for all of us.

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the world-famous LEGO brick, these 60 fun LEGO facts will make you the life of any LEGO party!

1. Six 2×4 LEGO bricks can be combined in more than 915 million ways.
2. A column of approximately 40 billion LEGO bricks can reach the moon.
3. 1,300 LEGO pieces are made per second, 78,000 per minute and 4,680,000 per hour.
4. The molds used to produce LEGO elements are accurate to within 4my/0.004mm – less than the width of a single hair. This accuracy is what LEGO refers to as clutch power. 
5. LEGO currently have 60+ different colors in production.
6. There are 3,700+ different LEGO elements (this includes all LEGO bricks and other LEGO elements.)
7. Every second, 7 LEGO sets are sold by retailers around the world.
8. The LEGO bricks sold in one year can wrap around Earth five times.
9. The world’s tallest LEGO tower has 550,000 LEGO bricks and stands more than 114’ tall. 
10. The word “LEGO” is a not noun, as per the LEGO Group. “LEGO” is an adjective, as in LEGO bricks, LEGO products and LEGO sets – you get the picture.
11. The plural of LEGO is “LEGO.”
12. The word “LEGO” is a fusion of the two Danish words “leg” (play) and “godt” (good).
13. Ole Kirk Christiansen (1891-1958) created The LEGO Group in 1932. He was a carpenter and started making wooden toys in 1932.
14. Ole Kirk Christiansen patented the famous inter-locking wooden-version of the LEGO brick in 1949.
15. For retired and hard-to-find LEGO bricks and sets, BrickLink is a LEGO collector’s dream marketplace. 

1. There are 86 LEGO bricks for every person on earth.
2. LEGO produces 318 million LEGO tires a year, or over 870,000 each day.
3. LEGO sells over 400 million tires each year, which makes LEGO the world’s largest tire manufacturer.
4. There are over 400 billion LEGO bricks in the world. Stacked together, they are 2,386,065 miles tall, which is ten times higher than the moon.
5. One LEGO can take up to 4,240 Newtons of force, or over 953 pounds. (No wonder it hurts so much to step on a LEGO brick.)
6. A single LEGO brick can support 375,000 other LEGO bricks before buckling. In other words, you can build a LEGO tower 2.17 miles high before the bottom LEGO brick breaks.
7. LEGO bricks haven’t changed over the years. A LEGO brick from 1956 fits on a LEGO brick made today.
8. Most LEGO manufacturing plants are located in Denmark, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
9. In the extremely rare event your LEGO set is missing a piece or includes a broken piece, LEGO will gladly send you replacement bricks at no expense to the LEGO fan: LEGO Brick Replacement Customer Service
10. LEGO licensed its first-themed LEGO set in 1999. The theme was Star Wars.
11. An “evil” LEGO figurine in the LEGO Alpha Team set is name Ogel, which is LEGO spelled backwards. He represents the exact opposite of the brand’s love of play and fun.
12. LEGO’s Danish motto is “Det bedste er ikke for godt,” which means “the best isn’t too good” or “only the best is good enough.”
13. Boba Fett from the Star Wars Cloud City LEGO set is one of the most rare and most collectable LEGO minifigures in the world.
14. You can propose an innovative idea for a LEGO set on LEGO Ideas. Once you get 10,000 social media supporters for your idea, LEGO will review your project and may decide to send it into production. 
15. In 2003, NBA Basketball Minifigures were the first to be based on real people, such as Kobe Bryant.

1. There are a total of 3,863,484 unique virtual LEGO bricks in the 2014 The LEGO Movie. However, many of those bricks were reused to create some of the film’s other scenes. To recreate the entire movie would take 15,080,330 virtual LEGO pieces.
2. In 2009, James May in Surrey, Great Britain, created the first full-sized LEGO house with 3.3 million bricks. It included a working toilet, shower, and a bed, which were all made out of LEGO bricks.
3. Most LEGO pieces are made of ABS plastic, which means they will never decompose. The first LEGO pieces made from plant-based plastic sourced from sugar cane are slated to go on sale in 2018.
4. LEGO created the first Minifigure in 1978. Since then, LEGO has created over 4 billion Minifigures, making it the world’s largest population group.
5. The largest LEGO set ever sold is the LEGO Taj Mahal, with 5,922 pieces.
6. “AFOL” is an acronym for “Adult Fans of LEGO.”
7. Approximately 86% LEGO Minifigures are male.
8. The first LEGO Minifigures in 1978 had yellow skin, two black dots for eyes, and a wide smile to represent people from anywhere in the world. In 2003, the LEGO group gave Minifigures realistic skin tones, facial expressions, and modeled hair.
9. Approximately 20 billion LEGO elements (bricks) are made every year in the LEGO factory in Billund, Denmark. This is about 2 million elements every hour, or 35,000 every minute.
10. Historically, each LEGO Minifigure was exactly 4 bricks high without a hat. In 2002, the Yoda Minifigure became the first to be a different height.
11. Over 8 quadrillion possible Minifigures could be made from all the parts that have been produced over the last 30 years.
12. The first LEGO Minifigure was a police officer and was part of the LEGO “Town” theme in early 1978.
13. The most expensive LEGO Minifigure is the 14k gold Star Wars 30th Anniversary C-3PO, which is said to be worth at least $200. LEGO made only two of these special characters.
14. The LEGO molding process is so accurate that just 18 elements in every million do not pass the company’s high quality standard.
15. In September 2014, LEGO passed Hasbro to become the world’s second biggest toy maker, behind Mattel.

1. Globally, children spend 5 billion hours a year playing with LEGO.
2. Quirrell from the Harry Potter LEGO set is the first minifigure to have a double-sided head. He has a swivel head that can spin from a good side to an evil side.
3. Alfred Molina who plays Doc Ock in Spider-Man 2 is one of only two actors to become a LEGO Minifigure twice. His other Minifigure is Satipo in the Indiana Jones series.
4. Most LEGO heads don’t have noses so that the facial graphics remain as clean as possible.
5. The LEGO Minifigurine Jar Jar Binks was the first Minifigure to have a specially molded head.
6. LEGO Minifigure heads are empty with small holes on either side of the head. The holes make it less likely for a child to choke in case the Minifigure head is swallowed.
7. In 2000, LEGO beat out the common Teddy Bear and the Barbie doll as the “Toy of the Century.”
8. LEGO bricks are made of heated plastic. The plastic becomes malleable enough to conform to molds when heated between 230 and 310 degrees Celsius and allowed to cool for up to 10 seconds before being released.
9. Because the founder of LEGO, Ole Kirk Christianson, didn’t want to make war attractive to children, there are no LEGO sets that directly focus on war.
10. LEGO Minifigures didn’t feature small toy guns until 1999 when LEGO started making licensed LEGO sets.
11. LEGO is a great toy for children with autism. The repetition and structured play offered by LEGO bricks helps autistic children develop nonverbal and verbal communication, sharing and teamwork.
12. Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOL) can turn to the internet dating site “Plenty of Fish” to find fellow “Users Interested in LEGO.”
13. Artist Antonio Toscano recreated shot-for-shot the trailer for the 2015 movie Fifty Shades of Grey with LEGO.
14. There is a tiny three-digit number stamped on the interior wall of all LEGO bricks. The number indicates which mold was used and where in the production line the brick was located. In case of a defect, LEGO can easily trace the error back to its origin and fix the problem.
15. Not all is lost if you misplace your LEGO instructions. LEGO has building instructions available on their website for instant download: LEGO Building Instructions Download

Did I miss anything important in this healthy collection of LEGO facts information? 

If you are looking for the best deals on LEGO, don’t miss this post with my best tips and tricks on how to find LEGO deals!

Happy birthday LEGO bricks… here’s to many more!