Fun facts to celebrate 40 years of the LEGO minifigure

To celebrate 40 years of the minifigure, the LEGO Group has shared a selection of fun facts.

On this day, 41 years ago, the LEGO Group submitted the patent for the minifigure. Little did anyone realise that the smiling characters would become so iconic, imbued in childhoods around the world. To celebrate 40 years since the release of these little fellows, the LEGO marketing team has put together some fun facts about the tiny brick buddies…

• 1974 introduced building figures, 1975 introduced stage extra figures with solid torsos, but it was 1978 when minifigures were introduced.
• There are 650 unique faces in the minifigure collection.
• In 1978, there were 20 different LEGO minifigure characters. In 2018, there are over 8,000.
• If the population of the human race had grown as quickly as the minifigure population, it would stand at 144 trillion.
• A LEGO minifigure is the same height as four bricks (you all knew this one).

• 20,750 minifigures stacked on top of one another would be the same height as the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world.
• The yellow face was chosen after consumer feedback in the 1970s said it was preferable to white faces.
• Eight different moulds are used in the production of a minifigure.
• In 1978, it took 9.8 seconds for each mould to produce eight heads – today it takes 14.7 seconds to produce 128 heads.

LEGO products are available to buy at shop.LEGO.com.