Danish Luxury

Toys Building toys

LEGO

The family-owned toy company of Billund that makes LEGO building bricks and sets.

Founded
1932
Founded by
Ole Kirk Kristiansen
Company
The LEGO Group
Based in
Billund

Visit lego.com

Children building from a heap of LEGO bricks
Children building from a heap of LEGO bricks
An early LEGO wooden pull-along duck
An early LEGO wooden pull-along duck

Pictures © The LEGO Group, from lego.com.

Why it is renowned

LEGO bricks entered the National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong National Museum of Play in 1998, and in 2000 Fortune magazine and the British Association of Toy Retailers each named them Toy of the Century.1 The LEGO Group is the largest toy maker in the world by sales.2 Its sales first passed Mattel's in the first half of 2014.3 LEGO runs more than a thousand LEGO Stores around the world, and Legoland parks carry the name from Windsor to Nagoya.2

The story

Ole Kirk Kristiansen, a carpenter in Billund, founded the company in 1932 and made wooden toys; the name comes from the Danish "leg godt", play well.42 Plastic toys followed in 1947 and the first building bricks in 1949; the brick took its present form in 1958 and has been moulded in ABS plastic since 1963.24 The company is based in Billund, and its bricks are moulded in Denmark, Hungary, Mexico, China, Vietnam and the United States.2 It is still owned by the Kirk Kristiansen family.45

Works

  • LEGO House, its house of play and museum in Billund
  • Plus-Plus, another Danish building toy, from Holbæk
Sources
  1. LEGO, National Toy Hall of Fame, The Strong National Museum of Play. toyhalloffame.org, read 1 October 2026.
  2. Lego, Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org, read 28 September 2026.
  3. Lego Is Now The Largest Toy Company In The World, Money, 2014-09-04. money.com, read 1 October 2026.
  4. The LEGO Group history. lego.com, read 28 September 2026.
  5. The Lego Group, Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org, read 28 September 2026.

Checked 1 October 2026, against the maker's own pages.