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Tiling by regular polygons

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Plane tilings by regular polygons have been widely used since antiquity. The first
systematic mathematical treatment was that of Kepler in Harmonices Mundi.

Contents
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• 1 Regular tilings
• 2 Archimedean, uniform or semiregular tilings
• 3 Combinations of regular polygons that can meet at a vertex
• 4 Other edge-to-edge tilings
• 5 Tilings that are not edge-to-edge
• 6 The hyperbolic plane
• 7 See also
• 8 References

• 9 External links

Regular tilings
Following Grünbaum and Shephard (section 1.3), a tiling is said to be regular if the
symmetry group of the tiling acts transitively on the flags of the tiling, where a flag is a
triple consisting of a mutually incident vertex, edge and tile of the tiling. This means that
for every pair of flags there is a symmetry operation mapping the first flag to the second.
This is equivalent to the tiling being an edge-to-edge tiling by congruent regular polygons.
There must be six equilateral triangles, four squares or three regular hexagons at a vertex,
yielding the three regular tessellations.
 36 44 63
Triangular tiling Square tiling Hexagonal tiling

Archimedean, uniform or semiregular tilings

Vertex-transitivity means that for every pair of vertices there is a symmetry operation
mapping the first vertex to the second.

If the requirement of flag-transitivity is relaxed to one of vertex-transitivity, while the

condition that the tiling is edge-to-edge is kept, there are eight additional tilings possible,
known as Archimedean, uniform or semiregular tilings. Note that there are two mirror
image (enantiomorphic or chiral) forms of 34.6 (snub hexagonal) tiling, both of which are
shown in the following table. All other regular and semiregular tilings are achiral.

34.6 34.6 3.6.3.6

Snub hexagonal tiling Snub hexagonal tiling reflection Trihexagonal tiling
 33.42 32.4.3.4 3.4.6.4
Elongated triangular tiling Snub square tiling Small rhombitrihexagonal t

4.82 3.122 4.6.12

Truncated square tiling Truncated hexagonal tiling Great rhombitrihexagonal t

Grünbaum and Shephard distinguish the description of these tilings as Archimedean as

referring only to the local property of the arrangement of tiles around each vertex being the
same, and that as uniform as referring to the global property of vertex-transitivity. Though
these yield the same set of tilings in the plane, in other spaces there are Archimedean tilings
which are not uniform.

Combinations of regular polygons that can meet at a

vertex
The internal angles of the polygons meeting at a vertex must add to 360 degrees. A regular

-gon has internal angle degrees. There are seventeen combinations of

regular polygons whose internal angles add up to 360 degrees, each being referred to as a
species of vertex; in four cases there are two distinct cyclic orders of the polygons, yielding
twenty-one types of vertex. Only eleven of these can occur in a uniform tiling of regular
polygons. In particular, if three polygons meet at a vertex and one has an odd number of
sides, the other two polygons must be the same size. If they are not, they would have to
alternate around the first polygon, which is impossible if its number of sides is odd.

With 3 polygons at a vertex:

• 3.7.42 (cannot appear in any tiling of regular polygons)

• 3.8.24 (cannot appear in any tiling of regular polygons)
• 3.9.18 (cannot appear in any tiling of regular polygons)
• 3.10.15 (cannot appear in any tiling of regular polygons)
• 3.122 - semi-regular, truncated hexagonal tiling
• 4.5.20 (cannot appear in any tiling of regular polygons)
• 4.6.12 - semi-regular, great rhombitrihexagonal tiling
• 4.82 - semi-regular, truncated square tiling
• 52.10 (cannot appear in any tiling of regular polygons)
• 63 - regular, hexagonal tiling

With 4 polygons at a vertex:

• 32.4.12 - not uniform, has two different types of vertices 32.4.12 and 36
• 3.4.3.12 - not uniform, has two different types of vertices 3.4.3.12 and 3.3.4.3.4
• 32.62 - not uniform, occurs in two patterns with vertices 32.62/36 and 32.62/3.6.3.6.
• 3.6.3.6 - semi-regular, trihexagonal tiling
• 44 - regular, square tiling
• 3.42.6 - not uniform, has vertices 3.42.6 and 3.6.3.6.
• 3.4.6.4 - semi-regular, small rhombitrihexagonal tiling

With 5 polygons at a vertex:

• 34.6 - snub hexagonal tiling

• 33.42 - semi-regular, Elongated triangular tiling
• 32.4.3.4 - semi-regular, Snub square tiling

With 6 polygons at a vertex:

• 36 - regular, Triangular tiling

Other edge-to-edge tilings

Any number of non-uniform (sometimes called demiregular) edge-to-edge tilings by
regular polygons may be drawn. Here are four examples:
 32.62 and 36 32.62 and 3.6.3.6

32.4.12 and 36 3.42.6 and 3.6.3.6

Such periodic tilings may be classified by the number of orbits of vertices, edges and tiles.
If there are n orbits of vertices, a tiling is known as n-uniform or n-isogonal; if there are n
orbits of tiles, as n-isohedral; if there are n orbits of edges, as n-isotoxal. The examples
above are four of the twenty 2-uniform tilings. Chavey lists all those edge-to-edge tilings
by regular polygons which are at most 3-uniform, 3-isohedral or 3-isotoxal.

Tilings that are not edge-to-edge

Regular polygons can also form plane tilings that are not edge-to-edge. Such tilings may
also be known as uniform if they are vertex-transitive; there are eight families of such
uniform tilings, each family having a real-valued parameter determining the overlap
between sides of adjacent tiles or the ratio between the edge lengths of different tiles.

The hyperbolic plane

Main article: Uniform tilings in hyperbolic plane

These tessellations are also related to regular and semiregular polyhedra and tessellations of
the hyperbolic plane. Semiregular polyhedra are made from regular polygon faces, but their
angles at a point add to less than 360 degrees. Regular polygons in hyperbolic geometry
have angles smaller than they do in the plane. In both these cases, that the arrangement of
polygons is the same at each vertex does not mean that the polyhedron or tiling is vertex-
transitive.

Some regular tilings of the hyperbolic plane (Using Poincaré disc model projection)

See also
• List of uniform tilings
• Wythoff symbol
• Tessellation
• Wallpaper group
• Regular polyhedron (the Platonic solids)
• Semiregular polyhedron (including the Archimedean solids)
• Hyperbolic geometry
• Penrose tiling
References
• Grünbaum, Branko; Shephard, G. C. (1987). Tilings and Patterns. W. H. Freeman
and Company. ISBN 0-7167-1193-1.
• D. Chavey (1989). "Tilings by Regular Polygons—II: A Catalog of Tilings".
Computers & Mathematics with Applications 17: 147–165. doi:10.1016/0898-
1221(89)90156-9.
• D. M. Y. Sommerville, An Introduction to the Geometry of n Dimensions. New
York, E. P. Dutton, 1930. 196 pp. (Dover Publications edition, 1958) Chapter X:
The Regular Polytopes