What is the largest jigsaw puzzle ever made? This is a burning question, so let’s not muck about: one of the largest jigsaw puzzles ever had 551,232 pieces and was assembled on September 24, 2011, in Vietnam by students of economics.

We’re not sure if that makes economics more enjoyable or not, but we do know that’s a puzzle that needs a team. An enormous one. And it’s probably not available at your puzzles store.

With that out of the way, let’s get down to the business of fun (which is what jigsaw puzzles are) and see about some gigantic jigsaw puzzles for adults you can actually try yourself. Because of their sheer number of pieces, these puzzles offer the kind of challenge that verges on inadvisable if not totally insane.

Some say fun is found on the line between silly and stupid. Who are we to judge?

Granny Anne the Pro Puzzler

This is the stuff of legend: there is a grandmother named Anne in Australia who has assembled many puzzles with more than 10,000 pieces each. She really hit her stride during the country’s COVID lockdowns, assembling a 24,000-piece puzzle and then a 33,600-piece puzzle. They are now on display in museums.

In her odyssey of puzzling, Anne has seen a lot come and go. She even thought she lost a piece to one of her dogs but found it lurking in the packaging years later. Can you imagine the catharsis of that moment?

Anne says puzzling on this scale brings families together. But she’s also known in her neighborhood as “the jigsaw lady,” and she has spent thousands on the hobby, so there’s that.

Seems like every accolade comes with a price, doesn’t it?

Some Really Massive Jigsaw Puzzles

If you think you’re something to behold with your amazing 2000 or 3000-piece puzzle skills, prepare to be humbled. Kodak’s 51,300-piece “27 Wonders of the World” will confiscate 174 square feet in your home, not counting sorting and working space.

This puzzle is composed of photos of the Taj Mahal, Tower Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the Great Wall of China, the Roman Colosseum, and the pyramids, among other wonders.

But wait, there’s more! (We always wanted to be able to say that.) If you have 190 square feet in your house that you simply have no idea what to do with, how about this 54,000-piece leviathan from Grafika: “Travel Around Art” is a cool image of an art gallery where visitors are taking in the classics.

Monet’s “Poppies,” Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” and Klimt’s “The Kiss”are all featured here, along with many more. After all, it’s over 28 feet long, so there’s plenty of room on this puzzling canvas.

The best part is that a lot of these multi-thousand-piece puzzles are available at your favorite puzzles store, so you can see if you too are up to the task.

A Word of Caution

These jigsaw puzzles for adults weigh a lot in the box. Some of them clock in at 50 pounds or more, so unless you’ve prepared, and we mean really prepared for an el huge-o puzzle, we advise against following this particular siren song. You could end up on the horns of a dilemma.

Here are a few words of advice on puzzling at this level.

Consider a Hand Truck and a Remodel

Seriously. A 50-pound box of anything is a bit of a burden; you’ll want help. And once you’ve got it inside the place of your abode, it may strike you that most houses don’t have any rooms that are, for instance, 28 feet long (or longer).

So there’s that. If you decide to tackle a 30,000-piece puzzle any time soon, perhaps some consideration for an addition to the house should figure into the budget. Hobbies do get expensive sometimes.

Follow Proven Procedures

There are two keys to puzzling that not just Granny Anne but anyone who’s put a puzzle together knows almost immediately:

• Start with the frame
• Sort, sort, sort

It’s best to start assembling a puzzle with the edge pieces because they not only establish a boundary for your work but also help guide your efforts through color and shape. But well before you begin interlocking the first two pieces together, you’re going to want to sort through them, at least by a couple of different distinguishing features:

• Edge vs. field
• Color

To do this effectively, you’ll want sorting containers. If the puzzle you have selected weighs anything near 50 pounds, you’ll probably want to use a bevy of those plastic totes that are about 16 x 32 inches. We recommend the shallower ones, not the deep ones.

Using collapsible cardboard boxes is a surefire way to lose pieces, so in the interest of your own mental health, go plastic, not paper, on this one.

Get Help

You may indeed need help in many ways, at least at this level, but what we mean is that you shouldn’t walk this path alone. Involve friends and family. Who knows? It could really bring people together. Especially if there’s either coffee or donuts. If there’s enough frosting and enough cream, the puzzle might not even need any glue.

Know the Jigsaw Puzzle’s Dimensions

The smartest thing you could do in solving a monster like one of these is to plan — not only for enough room for the completed puzzle but for you to be able to work on it.

If you’ll be solving it on the floor, just know that you’ll be on your belly a lot of the time, and backache is a thing. If it’s on an elevated surface, make sure it’s strong enough to support your weight because you will probably be crawling across it to place a piece.

Huge Jigsaw Puzzles Equal Huge Fun

Have you ever imagined what it might be like to complete a puzzle this size? Wow! Maybe your wheels are turning with all sorts of new inspiration about puzzles. And possibly adding on to the house. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.