18th century, Switzerland
The roots of Sudoku trace back to Leonhard Euler (1707–1783), a Swiss mathematician.
He invented a concept called “Latin Squares”, in which numbers (or symbols) appear only once
in each
row and column.
This was the mathematical foundation of Sudoku.
Modern Birth in the U.S.
1979, United States
An American puzzle magazine called Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games published a puzzle
named
“Number Place”.
This was the first version of what we now call Sudoku.
It was created by Howard Garns, a retired architect and puzzle constructor.
Rise in Japan
1984, Japan
The puzzle was introduced in Japan by the publisher Nikoli.
They renamed it “Sudoku”, short for Sūji wa dokushin ni kagiru (数字は独身に限る), which roughly
means:
“the digits must be single” or “only single numbers allowed.”
In Japan, it became extremely popular, because Japanese culture already had a strong
tradition of
logic puzzles.
Global Popularity
2004, United Kingdom
A New Zealander named Wayne Gould, a retired judge, saw Sudoku in Japan and developed a
computer
program to generate new puzzles.
He persuaded The Times in London to publish Sudoku puzzles daily.
This sparked a worldwide craze in the mid-2000s, spreading rapidly to newspapers across
Europe, the
U.S., and beyond.
Today
Sudoku is now one of the most recognized puzzles worldwide.
There are countless variations (Killer Sudoku, Samurai Sudoku, Hyper Sudoku, etc.).
Sudoku competitions are held internationally, including the World Sudoku Championship.
Rules of Sudoku
Grid Structure
The standard Sudoku puzzle is a 9×9 grid.
It is divided into 9 smaller 3×3 boxes (also called regions, blocks, or subgrids).
Goal
Fill the grid so that every row, every column, and every 3×3 box contains all the numbers 1
through
9, with no repetitions.
Starting Clues
Some numbers are given at the start of the puzzle. These are fixed and cannot be changed.
Placement Rules
Each number from 1 to 9 must appear exactly once in each:
Row
Column
3×3 box
Training Boards
The board of 3x3 and 6x6 are meant for training purposes. For 3x3 board you can use the
numbers from
1 to 3, for the 6x6 board you can use the numbers from 1 to 6.