10 Fun Facts About Origami

Origami is a vast enjoyable craft with tons of stories and history. Here are 10 fun facts about origami to get you excited to explore paper folding more.

Origami used to be a religious experience

Though the precise history of paper is vague, because paper doesn’t survive into archeological record, it is generally believed that paper making was brought from China into Japan by Buddhist monks.

China has its own tradition of paper folding called Zhezhi. We can assume that while it developed independently, the initial idea would have traveled to Japan with paper itself.

Paper was rare and expensive in the beginning. It was used for spiritual and ritual practices. The zig-zag folded paper streamers called Shide are likely one of the earliest form (they might have originally been fabric). These streamers can still be found hanging off the Shimenawa protective rope around Shinto shrines.¹

Samurai warriors gave gifts of dried shellfish

Paper continued to be an expensive and precious material for centuries. The nobility had easier access to it and so paper folded objects because a common practice in refined society and even among the samurai warriors of that period.

Noshi was a common form of ritual gifting among this group. A dried piece of abalone (shellfish) wrapped in a stylistically folded wrapping. While actual use of Noshi as gifts is now rare, the design of these presents samurai gave each other survive on modern Japanese money envelopes which are given as gifts. Origami noshi wrapping have now become symbolic of a gift.

1000 paper cranes to make a wish

In Japan, cranes have always been a symbol of long life. They are holy creatures that tradition has poetically claimed “live for a thousand years”. The idea of folding a thousand origami cranes stems from that belief. Senbazuru (千羽鶴) lit. ’one thousand cranes’ are made one for each year of the cranes life. Folding them is said to grant the folder a wish and longevity, of course.

This practice has gained more universal popularity through the tragic story of Sadako Sasaki, who as a 2 year old infant survived the Hiroshima bomb. She lived into her teens but the radiation poisoning soon led to serious health issues. In the hospital, prompted by a visit from a school friend, she started folding a paper cranes, hoping senbazuru would grant her her wish. After her tragic death she became a symbol of peace and her origami cranes were always part of the celebration of her life and all the monuments to peace that bear her image and name.

In spite of that tragic story, the 1000 cranes remain a symbol of hope and positivity. Strings of senbazuru are still offered at shrines for the best outcome of major life events. Student wish for good admissions, newly weds for happiness, and the crane really does continue to live on for its one thousand years and perhaps more.²

Origami in space exploration

The mathematics and geometrical concepts which have come out of the study of origami have no doubt contributed greatly to space exploration indirectly, but the even when it comes to techniques of folding sheets of material into interesting shapes, space vehicles have benefited from several origami tricks.

The methods used to fold in solar shields and panels on space vehicles into the tight confines of launch vehicles are all thanks to the wisdoms we have gained from origami. The James Webb Space Telescope animated above used several such techniques for both the main mirror assembly of the telescope and the multi layered solar shield.³

More recognizable paper origami has made it into space and zero-gravity too. The fact that the craft requires only light paper and not tools is one attraction when you’re launching astronauts into space with strict weight limits. Origami’s general association with peace and world cooperation has also sat well with various international projects like the image taken on the ISS below.

Origami World Records

Like the history of origami, the world records involving origami are all over the place. There are many of them too! Mostly they are to do with the largest collections of models of some type. But the largest and smallest ones are interesting.

The largest origami crane ever folded was in Hiroshima, Japan in 2009. It had a wingspan of almost 82 meters. The giant crane pictured above was only the second largest.⁴

The largest paper boat was floated by artist Frank Boelter who made the 9-meter long vessel of ‘Tetrapak’ paper in Germany.⁵

The smallest origami crane was made out of a 1mm by 1mm piece of paper using a microscope and sewing needle by Assistant Professor Watanabe at Nigata University, Japan.⁶

See more official Guinness World Records related to origami . And other origami world records.

Paper folding limit

There used to be a myth that you can never fold a piece of paper repeatedly in half over 7 times. This was not true, of course because this would depend heavily on the size and shape of the sheet of paper.

Then student, and now mathematician Britney Gallivan created a world record in 2002 by folding a piece of tissue paper repeatedly in half 12 times. But to do this, she started with a length of tissue paper 1.2 kilometers long!

The challenge is in geometric progression. The thickness of the paper doubles at every half folding. This may seem outlandish but the numbers go up much more dramatically than you may imagine. 26 folds would make the folded paper as high as Mt. Everest. With 42 folds, you’d fold yourself to the Moon!⁷

Harry Houdini practiced origami

When Harry Houdini was not all tied up, he loved to explore various tricks in the magician’s repertoire. He was fascinated by performances of close up magic in which paper was a popular material.

So much so that he wrote an entire book on Paper Magic which includes a healthy section on paper folding, covering traditional models like the crane, the frog and several other classics

Could Geometry be Fun?

Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding is a book on the mathematics of paper folding. It was written by Indian mathematician T. Sundara Row, first published in India in 1893.

The book introduced the idea of doing geometrical constructions using paper folding as an alternative to traditional geometrical instruments.

While mathematics and origami go hand-in-hand today, this was one of the first works of such significant detail to formalize the connection and introduce many techniques which geometricians would continue to be inspired by into the modern era.⁸

Wet folding is a thing

Wet-folding is a technique where you use a thicker paper than normal origami, and dampen the paper before folding. It works very well with animals and organic forms, creating curved shapes and smooth transitions with fewer wrinkles. Akira Yoshizawa, the grandmaster of modern origami developed the technique to create more sculpted looking paper models.⁹

Papiroflexia & Paper Folding in Europe

Paper folding is claimed to be the creation of various parts of the world, but like most arts and cultural practices, there is likely no simple answer. We suspect that paper folding was introduced into Europe by the Moors along with paper making, but it is also true that fabric folding was around since the Egyptians, as were forms of parchment folding, so exact origins get blurred.

However it arrived there, paper folding took on a life of its own in Europe. Spain in particular continued to have a very active practice, their name for it being Papiroflexia. The Pajarita folded bird, based on what we now call the windmill base is to Spanish folding what the origami crane is the Japanese folding. Some suspect the Pajarita bird model might be one of the original European contributions to the craft.

The model has been found mentioned and represented in art and literature and went by various names across the continent and the world. In France the pajarita was known as a “cocotte” (hen or chicken), in Germany “papierdrache” (paper dragon), in England it was known as a hobby-horse, in Arabic “asfur”, in Japan “anu”.¹⁰

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1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shide_(Shinto) ↩︎
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_thousand_origami_cranes ↩︎
3. https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/webb-and-origami/ ↩︎
4. https://origami-resource-center.com/origami-street-art/largest-paper-crane/ ↩︎
5. https://www.britishorigami.org/academic/johnsmith/records/largest.php ↩︎
6. using a microscope and sewing needle by Assistant Professor Watanabe at Nigata University, Japan. ↩︎
7. https://www.cleverlearning.co.uk/foldingPaper.php ↩︎
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_Exercises_in_Paper_Folding ↩︎
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Yoshizawa ↩︎
10. https://www.britishorigami.org/cp-lister-list/pajarita/ ↩︎