Sudoku (数 独), also known as Number Place or Nanpure, is a kind of logic puzzle. The goal is to fill in the numbers from 1 to 9 into the web of 9×9 which consists of 9 boxes 3×3 without any numbers that are repeated in a row, column or box. First published in a French newspaper in 1895 and may be influenced by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, who made the famous Latin square.
Modern versions of this game started at Indianapolis in 1979. Later it became famous in Japan in 1986, when publisher Nikoli discovered this puzzle created by Howard Garns.
The name "Sudoku" is the Japanese abbreviation of "Suuji ni wa dokushin kagiru" (数字 は 独身 に 限る?), meaning "the digits must remain single".
