Tessellation facts for kids

Tessellation of a flat surface refers to the repeated placement of shapes with no overlaps and no gaps. These shapes are also called tiles. In mathematics, tessellations can be generalized to higher dimensions and a variety of geometries.

Images for kids

Zellige terracotta tiles in Marrakech, forming edge-to-edge, regular and other tessellations
A temple mosaic from the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk IV (3400–3100 BC), showing a tessellation pattern in coloured tiles
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A rhombitrihexagonal tiling: tiled floor in the Archeological Museum of Seville, Spain, using square, triangle and hexagon prototiles
The elaborate and colourful zellige tessellations of glazed tiles at the Alhambra in Spain that attracted the attention of M. C. Escher
The 15th convex monohedral pentagonal tiling, discovered in 2015
A Pythagorean tiling
This tessellated, monohedral street pavement uses curved shapes instead of polygons. It belongs to wallpaper group p3.
Tessellating three-dimensional space: the rhombic dodecahedron is one of the solids that can be stacked to fill space exactly.
Roman mosaic floor panel of stone, tile and glass, from a villa near Antioch in Roman Syria. 2nd century AD
A quilt showing a regular tessellation pattern
A honeycomb is a natural tessellated structure.
Tessellate pattern in a Colchicum flower
Traditional tangram dissection puzzle
The Voderberg tiling, a spiral, monohedral tiling made of enneagons.
Alternated octagonal or tritetragonal tiling is a uniform tiling of the hyperbolic plane.