Most people reading about International Sudoku Day probably already know a lot about Sudoku, but on the off-chance that someone reading this isn’t familiar with the game, we’ll go ahead and give a brief overview of it. It’s a logic-based puzzle with combinatorial number placement.

The purpose of this game is to fill a 9×9 grid with digits so that each row, each column, and each of the nine 3×3 subgrids contains all the digits from 1 to 9. The holiday dedicated to this puzzle is observed annually on September 9th and allows Sudoku players from around the world to not only play this game but to also share their love for it.

The History Of International Sudoku Day

Although there were various variations of Sudoku puzzle features in the 19th century, many of them based on the mathematical puzzle the Latin Square, the modern Sudoku puzzle only began to come into the forefront until the mid-1980s when Nikoli, a Japanese puzzle company, first appeared in a U.S. newspaper. Every year since, this game has continued to grow in popularity.

Eventually, someone decided that a holiday should be created for this puzzle. That happened in 2013 when the World Puzzle Federation established International Sudoku Day. The game was placed on September 9th since that date is 9/9 and Sudoku consists of a 9×9 grid of numbers. This holiday has continued to be observed by Sudoku fans ever since.

Some Fun Facts About Sudoku

Okay, we decided that the best way to introduce people to this game is by listing some of the facts that we know about it. So without further ado, allow us to introduce some fun Sudoku facts to everyone reading today. We hope that they bring a modicum of joy to everyone reading them.

• Anyone who has a basic level of logical reasoning can create a Sudoku puzzle.
• There are so many possible Sudoku grids available that it would take several lifetimes for people to solve them all.
• The popularity of Sudoku really took off in 2005.
• Every year since 2006, there has been an International Sudoku Championship.

Observing International Sudoku Day

Playing Sudoku is the way this holiday is observed. Of course, not everyone is familiar with this game, so for those individuals, this is probably going to be a game that they are going to have to learn how to play.

That should be no problem considering that there are a variety of online resources that people can use to learn the game. While they’re online, they can spread the love of this holiday using the hashtag #InternationalSudokuDay. Now let’s get to solving those 9×9 grids!