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11 of the craziest jigsaw puzzle world records

We all love a good jigsaw, but some of the planet’s biggest puzzle nerds have taken this hobby to a whole new level.

Guinness World Records has recognized lots of amazing feats in puzzling, like solving puzzles at lightning speed, maintaining the biggest collection or gathering a massive crew of puzzlers to solve one together. We can’t help but admire these puzzle fanatics for leaving nothing on the table and reaching their puzzling goals!

The craziest jigsaw puzzle world records

Fastest 250-piece puzzle

Puzzles can be a great slow-paced, relaxing hobby, but there’s also a sense of achievement in solving puzzles at lightning speed.

Connecticut teen Deepika Ravichandran showed off her record-breaking puzzle skills on June 9, 2014 by solving a 250-piece puzzle in just 13 minutes and 7 seconds. Putting it together at a rate of 18 pieces per minute, she solved the official Guinness World Record puzzle, which was completely new to her.

EDIT: Since posting this blog, we were contacted by Cloudberries fan Tammy McLeod, who actually broke this record in December 2020 – and by some way, too!

McLeod completed the puzzle in an astonishing 9 minutes and 58 seconds, claiming her first Guinness World Record for speed puzzling.

To make things even more challenging, the ‘official’ world record puzzle is oval shaped and has no picture on it.

And, because several years had passed since Ravichandran’s attempt, the puzzle had actually gone out of print – leaving McLeod no option but to source a second-hand copy to practice with!

Fastest 500-piece puzzle

Before Ravichandran’s swift record, Joellen Beifuss held the record for the fastest 500-piece puzzle, which she set at the US National Jigsaw Puzzle Championships 1984 in Ohio.

She solved a 500-piece puzzle she’d never seen before in just 54 minutes and 10 seconds. If that sounds a lot longer than Ravichandran’s record, keep in mind that doubling the number of pieces in a puzzle actually quadruples the amount of time it’ll take to solve.

Jigsaw puzzle with most pieces

World record for the jigsaw puzzle with the most pieces
Photo: Midori Kha Han

Solving puzzles and setting records is no big deal for students at Vietnam’s University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City. They assembled a 551,232-piece puzzle on September 24, 2011, scoring the record for the most pieces in a finished jigsaw puzzle.

This massive puzzle, depicting a lotus flower, measured 14.85 x 23.2 metres once completed.

The six leaves on the lotus represent six areas of knowledge: human beings, geography, history, culture, education, and economy. It took 1,600 students 17 hours to put this big picture together.

The students secured their victory with more than double the number of puzzle pieces used in the previous record. That record was set in 2002 in Singapore with a measly 212,323-piece puzzle.

Jigsaw puzzle channel with most subscribers

In 2022, Karen Kavett (AKA Karen Puzzles) announced that she had set a new Guinness World Record. With more than 143,000 subscribers as of January 2022, she is officially the most followed jigsaw puzzler on YouTube!

Since then, her follower count has increased a LOT and she continues to make fun videos that get the puzzle community talking.

Check out Karen’s channel here (trust us, it’s sooo worth it, and she even uses our Gradient puzzle as the background for her header image!).

Alternatively, you can check out some of the other puzzlers on YouTube in this guide.

Biggest jigsaw puzzle

When it comes to creatively celebrating a major event, we think there’s no better way to do it than with one of the world’s biggest jigsaw puzzles.

That’s exactly what government entity DMCC did to commemorate the Year of Zayed, honouring the late Sheikh Zayed, founding father of the United Arab Emirates. All 12,320 pieces of this 6,122.68 square metre puzzle featuring the Year of Zayed logo were assembled on July 7, 2018 in Dubai.

Wondering what happened to all those wood block puzzle pieces once the celebration was over? Honouring their commitment to sustainability, DMCC made sure that the pieces were all recycled when it was time to disassemble the puzzle.

Before Dubai flipped the competition, Great East Asia Surveyors & Consultants Co. Ltd had held the record since 2002. Their puzzle measured 5,428.8 square metres and was assembled at the former Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong.

Largest puzzle completed underwater

Solving a puzzle on land can be challenging enough, but with another world record for their country at their fingertips, the Dubai Police decided to take this hobby underwater.

On December 2, 2013, this team of aquatic puzzlers solved a 168 square metre puzzle, winning one of the weirder accolades in Dubai’s collection of world records.

Largest jigsaw puzzle collection

We consider ourselves to be puzzle fanatics, but it’s possible that Luiza Figueiredo of Sao Paulo, Brazil has us beat. Her collection of 1,047 jigsaw puzzles won her a Guinness World Record on July 9, 2017. This wasn’t her first record, however. She started collecting puzzles in 1967 and won her first record in 2010 with just 238 puzzles at the time. She continued to piece together her collection and broke her own record in 2012 with 502 puzzles.

Later that year though, she finally lost her position when Georgina Gil-Lacuna of the Philippines surpassed her with a collection of 1,028 puzzles. Putting her mind to winning the title back, Figueiredo more than doubled the size of her collection and officially edged out the competition to reclaim the title five years later.

There are more jigsaw puzzle records than you might think!

Largest human jigsaw puzzle piece

Puzzle pieces come in all shapes and sizes, and in Greece puzzle pieces can even be formed by people. On March 29, 2019, the Association for the Protection of Persons with Autism-Pervasive Developmental Disorders sorted a group of 1,702 individuals into one big human puzzle piece.

The image of a puzzle piece has long been a symbol of autism awareness, which shaped this world record into a great opportunity to raise awareness about Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Most expensive jigsaw puzzle sold at auction

How much is your favourite puzzle worth to you? On September 28, 2005, the most expensive jigsaw puzzle was sold at a charity auction for $27,000.

The 467-piece puzzle was handmade by Rachel Page Elliott, who is known for her fine attention to detail, often cutting intricate animals and other interesting shapes into her puzzle designs. The puzzle sale was part of a charity auction in Gettysburg, PA, to benefit the Golden Retriever Foundation and it included a signed print of a golden retriever with her puppies.

Most people solving a single jigsaw puzzle

Solving a puzzle is a great group activity, but some puzzles take an extra-large group of people to solve. That was the case in Barcelona, Spain, when 9,569 puzzlers got together to assemble a single puzzle of a giant panda.

Chello Multicanal, a Spanish television company, put this group together at the Fira de Barcelona, a major trade show centre. Even with such a large group, it took nine days to complete the puzzle, with the team working on it from December 27, 2011 to January 4, 2012.

Most jigsaw puzzle pieces tattooed on the body

Enigma, the man with the most jigsaw puzzle pieces tattooed on his body
Photo: Steve Baker

For many of us, puzzles hold a special piece of our hearts, and we all show our love of puzzles in different ways. For the performer who calls himself The Enigma, the best way to show that love was to tattoo it on his body.

Never that interested in fitting in, he began covering himself with tattoos in 1992 and was officially recognized by Guinness World Records on April 13, 2011 for his full-body jigsaw puzzle tattoo that includes 2,123 individual puzzle pieces.

Try breaking your own world record with one of these puzzles!

7 replies on “11 of the craziest jigsaw puzzle world records”

  • jennifer 100 piece puzzles in 15 minutes it can be even for a 4 years old child cuz there are kids that are very geniuses and has many capabilities and they are brilliants in logical thinking and perception that most people hasen’t , usually that kids called gifted and discovered in a very young age after they birth so i belive you .
    but clare fisher with all the respect you cant solve 10,000 puzzle pieces by your self in 10 hours , cant be so fast unless you have a prove , im a smart guy and i done belive to all stuff that i read on the internet , you can say many things and you dont need to confess so come on

  • I’m wondering about records for larger puzzles. I once solved a 10,000 piece puzzle in 10 hours by myself in one sitting and have yet to speak to anyone who has done the same.

  • My son is 4 and completes 100 piece puzzles in 15 minutes can we create a youngest and/or fastest record please/ thanks!

  • I have over 8000 jigsaw puzzles. Maybe I need to contact Guinness Book of World Records?

  • Ho ho ! Such an interesting publication ! As well done as your puzzles , Cloudberries team . Thanks a lot for sharing it . Bravo et merci 👏👏 You’re the best 💪

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