Some fascinating facts about Lego on its 60th birthday

Sixty years ago today, a patent was signed on what was to become one of the most iconic toys of all time.

Production of Lego first began in 1949, in Denmark, where a carpenter called Ole Kirk Christiansen had founded a company of the same name in the 1930s, originally manufacturing wooden toys.

But in 1958, the modern version of the famous inter-locking brick was invented.

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The Lego Group is still based in the town of Billund, although Lego is produced in several countries.

600 billion pieces of Lego have now been produced

This figure was reached in 2015

Lego has been named the 'world's biggest brand'

It replaced Ferrari in 2015

A Danish trade magazine in the 1950s predicted that plastic toys would never replace wooden ones

They made the call after visiting the Lego factory, They were wrong

A new, more versatile design was developed in 1958

By Ole Kirk's son. This enabled Lego to really take off as a creative play system

Duplo was introduced in 1969

It's aimed at younger children

Lego has been sent into space

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In 2011, a space shuttle took 13 Lego kits into orbit. Astronauts at the International Space Station used the kits to study the effects of gravity

The largest Lego model was made of five million bricks

It went on display in New York in 2013, and was a model of an X-wing fighter

It was once suggested that Lego was the world's biggest tyre manufacturer

Because it produces 306million mini rubber tyres per year. The claim was refuted in 2012

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Moulding is done in Denmark and there are Lego plants all over the world

They can be found in China, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Mexico

There are seven Legoland theme parks

They're in Denmark, England, Germany, California, Florida, Dubai and Malaysia. There are 132 Lego stores across the world.

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