About

Nets of a Cube

A cube has exactly 11 distinct nets. There are 35 ways to join six squares edge to edge, but only 11 of them fold up into a cube, counting shapes that match after a rotation or a flip as the same net. On this page all 11 open out one at a time from the solid, and once the full set is on screen the sequence starts again.

The 11 nets group by the length of their central strip. Six are 1-4-1, a strip of four squares with one square on each side; three are 2-3-1; and the staircase 2-2-2 and the 3-3 make one each. Laid out side by side, they show that moving a single square one step along the strip is enough to give a different net.

A face colour is decided by which face lands on the bottom as the cube rolls to the next square, so every net shows all six colours exactly once. Turn on the numbers in the display panel and you can follow which colours end up opposite each other once the net closes. Every crease opens through 90 degrees, which is the dihedral angle of the cube itself.