10 of the Most Frequently asked Questions about Labyrinths, with Answers

Mazes and labyrinths are often confused, but they offer vastly different experiences. While I've previously tackled common maze questions ( 10 Frequently Asked Questions About Mazes with Answers), it's time to unravel the mysteries surrounding labyrinths. Here are 10 common labyrinth questions, with answers to guide you through their winding paths and calming purpose. But before we get to the questions, here is a brief summary to give labyrinths some historical context:

Labyrinths Through the Ages

Labyrinths have captivated humans for centuries, appearing in various forms across diverse cultures. Their origins remain shrouded in mystery, but evidence suggests they date back over 4,000 years.

  • Ancient Beginnings: Early examples of labyrinthine patterns have been discovered in numerous locations, including:

    • Crete: The legendary labyrinth of King Minos, said to house the fearsome Minotaur, is perhaps the most famous example from Greek mythology.

    • Ancient Rome: Romans incorporated labyrinth designs into mosaics and architecture.

    • Scandinavia: Stone carvings and petroglyphs featuring labyrinthine forms have been found throughout the region.

    • Native American Cultures: Labyrinths hold spiritual significance in many Native American traditions, such as the Tohono O'odham and Hopi tribes.

  • Medieval Resurgence: Labyrinths experienced a revival in the Middle Ages, often appearing in cathedrals and churches. These labyrinths were frequently used for symbolic pilgrimages or meditative practices.

10 of the most frequently asked questions about labyrinths, with answers:

What is a labyrinth ?

  • A labyrinth is a single, winding path that leads to a center point and back out again. Unlike a maze, there are no dead ends or choices to make. It's a unicursal path, meaning there's only one way to go.  

How is a labyrinth different from a maze?

  • Mazes are designed to be puzzles with branching paths, dead ends, and multiple solutions, while labyrinths have a single, non-branching path with no dead ends, meant to be meditative and contemplative, not challenging. You cannot get lost in a labyrinth if you continue following the path. For a fun look at this, check out my post, Is There a Difference Between a Maze and a Labyrinth ?

Square Labyrinth vs Maze

Why the continued confusion between mazes and labyrinths ?

  • Simply put, many languages use one word to describe both versions. The Romance languages are a good example of this. If you translate the word maze or labyrinth from English into Italian or Portuguese they are both labirinto, Spanish would be laberinto, and French is labyrinthe. Because of this you can find many hedge mazes around the world that are called labyrinths, furthering the confusion, like the Villa Pisani Labirinto (a beautiful hedge maze) , or in the opposite direction the Man in the Maze (a Native American labyrinth type).

  • The word maze is the newer word, with Germanic roots from the 15th Century. It likely comes from the Middle English word "mase," meaning "confusion" or "delusion".

What is the purpose of a labyrinth?

  • Labyrinths have been used for centuries for various purposes, including:

    • Spiritual practice: Walking a labyrinth can be a form of meditation, prayer, or contemplation.  

    • Personal reflection: The journey to the center and back can symbolize a journey of self-discovery or problem-solving.  

    • Stress reduction: The repetitive walking pattern can be calming and help to clear the mind.  

    • Creative inspiration: The labyrinth's design can spark new ideas and perspectives.  

How do I walk a labyrinth?

  • There's no right or wrong way. You can walk at your own pace, pausing for reflection as you wish. Some people walk with a specific intention or question in mind.  There are suggestions on how to approach a labyrinth, based on the experience you seek.

    Here are some labyrinth walking tips:

  • Set an intention for your walk, such as prayer, reflection, meditation, contemplation, or openness, so you can walk with purpose.

  • Be sure to wear comfortable shoes, as you will be doing a lot of walking depending on the labyrinths size.

  • Take your time and enjoy the experience. There is no need to rush through a labyrinth.

  • Be respectful of other visitors. This includes not making noise and being respectful if walking with other people.

What are the different types of labyrinths?

  • There are many different labyrinth designs, but some of the most common include:

    • Classical: The oldest and most well-known, with seven circuits.  

    • Medieval: Often found in cathedrals, with 11 circuits.  

    • Contemporary: Modern designs with varying patterns and sizes.  

  • Less common types include:

    • Man in the Maze: A symbol from the Tohono O'Odham nation. Learn details about it here, or here, and here

    • Caerdroia Labyrinth: A type of Welsh turf maze based on the Cretan labyrinth design

    • Hopi Tapu'at Labyrinth: Native American Labyrinth, the “Mother and Child” symbol.

Can I create my own labyrinth?

  • Yes! You can create a temporary labyrinth with materials like stones, candles, or even tape. There are also resources available for designing and building permanent labyrinths.  

  • If you want to draw a labyrinth on a piece of paper, I have that covered for many different types in my How to Draw a Labyrinth section of the website.


What are some resources for learning more about labyrinths?

  • The Labyrinth Society - ”The Labyrinth Society is a diverse community of labyrinth enthusiasts and we welcome all who create, use, and experience labyrinths.”

  • Veriditas - Can best be described by quoting their mission from their website “Veriditas is dedicated to inspiring personal and planetary change and renewal through the labyrinth experience. We accomplish our mission by training and supporting labyrinth facilitators around the world, and offering meaningful events that promote further understanding of the labyrinth as a tool for personal and community transformation.”

  • Lauren Artress website - For coaching, workshops and classes.

What are some good books about labyrinths ?

So, after learning all this information you might want to walk a labyrinth:

Where can I find a labyrinth to walk?

  • Worldwide Labyrinth Finder is the best site to find a labyrinth near you.

  • Labyrinths can be found in a variety of settings, including: Churches and cathedrals, parks and gardens, hospitals and retreat centers, schools and universities and even some private homes.

  • I have written a series of blog posts by state highlighting some of the best public labyrinths in the US.

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Maze Comic Book Cover #56 - From Dawn til Tusk

Issue #56 in my comic book cover series is called From Dawn til Tusk and features a new maze of a Walrus. The background was made using starryai.

My comic book cover mazes can be found in 2 places:

Comic Book Cover Mazes - Year 1 (Issues #1-53)

Comic Book Cover Mazes - Year 2

Walrus Maze Comic Book

This the 3rd comic book in the yearly series. I hope you enjoy them !

To receive a book of my first year of comic book book mazes (Volume 1 with mazes #1-53) you can sign up for my book alerts - any time I launch a free maze book, or paid book (on Amazon), I will send you a note about the new book launch.

Maze of the Week 3 Redux - Museum of the North (MOTW#160)

You may not know this but I have an archive of old mazes that are unlinked from the website. If you don’t know what that means - it means there is no menu option to reach the archive. It includes old pages that were not very popular on the site but still had traffic and so I keep them around. If you click on a search that includes them you can reach the archive or if I give you the link like above. Today’s maze of the Museum of the North in Alaska is part of the archive. The maze is ok. But, as I have found out, people don’t care about mazes of buildings, signs and locations unless they are famous. So I think I did a good job on it, but even if I did a great job….eh. I decided to improve it anyway. It’s good practice. I enjoy the process. This post will be read more than the maze will be sought out. Here is the original post:

Maze of the Week #3 - The University of Alaska Museum of the North

So my MOTW#3 becomes the 3rd maze of the year again 3 years later and officially MOTW #160.

Here are the enhancements I made to improve the maze:

1. Changed the Start/Goal. I changed them from arrows to an internal written Start and Goal.

2. Changed the size. I reduced the height reduced from 8 inches to 5.5 to eliminate empty space, which reduced the lawn and the sky size as a result.

3. Changed the title. The title was reduced from 42 to 28 size, which allowed me to put the title on one line. Then I added the location below.

4. Added textures. I textured the lawn, the walkway/parking lot and the background trees.

5. Added shadows. I added shadows to the front building nook, on the left side of the building, and around/onto the front windows.

6. Fixed the windows. The window panels on the front of the building were fixed (were showing incorrectly in original maze). Minor, but it needed done.

7. Changed outlines. I switched front lawn outline to none (there is no longer a black border for the lawn) and the background trees to no outline. This makes them read more green than green with black outlines.

Let’s see the before and after:

I don’t know quite how to express this, but the end result was minimal changes, but it looks so much better. It looks the same…but at the same time…..not the same at all.

Some data: The new file is 471MB from 49MB.

I will be replacing the archive with the new maze going forward. You can find the maze download there (if you can find the archive) !

If you like this type of content check out all of my case studies:

A Collection of Maze Design Case Studies to Improve your Mazes

Happy maze-ing !

Case Study - Making Maze Art in 3 Different Difficulties

I want to take a deeper look on creating mazes at different difficulty levels with a case study. I have looked at this topic before where I discussed ways to change the difficulty level of a maze. Here is some pre-reading if you want some background on the topic:

Maze Design Case Study - Designing a Grid Maze in Different Difficulty levels

Maze Construction - 5 Maze Design Decisions Make All the Difference

This version will take a specific maze and I will make in 3 different difficulty levels. I choose the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame Maze (my 2022 maze of the year) to work with, mostly done in black and white to more easily show the work, and zoomed in to focus on the maze portion more than overall picture. The maze is a bit longer and larger than I would like, but it works. All 3 options can be downloaded to make solving easier. The best way to experience and understand this post is to download each maze and try to solve it !

Option 1: Can you tell what difficulty level this is ? Try to solve half way to get an idea.

What did you notice ? Hopefully that this maze was relatively easy. Any incorrect branch was short (typically 3 panels) and had no branches off of it. There are no 3 choice blocks in the maze. It is not quite kids maze easy because the maze is too long…but a more compact version of this could be.

Option 2: Same deal. Try it. Go half way or farther this time.

What I hoped you noticed was this was a bit more difficult. Now, if you took a wrong branch, that branch also split in 2, so you got deeper into a bad pathway. But, I kept the branches relatively short, so things don’t get out of hand. I consider this medium difficulty.

Option 3: You know this one is the most difficult, so try to solve the entire maze this time.

In this maze I used almost all of the full picture and have branches off branches, longer branches, and some long wrong turns. There are also a few places where 3 options are available to move. This could be made even harder, but compared to options 1 & 2 this works.

Now, let’s get under the hood and make this a case study by marking the pathways based on what their purpose is from the designer.

Red - the pathway solution !

Blue - incorrect pathways

Purple - filler pathways that are not reachable by the maze solver

Green - incorrect pathways that branch from incorrect pathways (very wrong turns)

Orange - incorrect pathways added to fill in blank spaces (replaces purple filler in this example)

Option 1 with branches shown

Blue pathways are short (although there are many of them) and none of them branch out. All purple branches are unreachable and filler. This is what an easy maze looks like. You could remove the purple pathways, but it would make the maze look uneven and the pathway more obvious.

Option 2 with branches shown

Same solution, but some of the blue pathways branch out into additional options (shown in green). This is a medium difficulty. I kept the incorrect branches relatively short again. So, blue is a bad path, and green is a very bad path !

Option 3 with branches shown

The hard maze. All purple filler has been replaced and any pathway shown can be reached by the solver. Wrong pathways can be taken for longer (especially if you take the orange pathways at the top of the maze).

So that is 1 maze done in 3 difficulty levels, but all with the SAME correct solution !


So to summarize I used the following to change the difficulty of the maze:

  • The length of dead ends - How fast you know you have made an incorrect choice

  • Dead ends with branches - When you make a wrong turn are there multiple incorrect choices on that branch (branches off of branches)

  • Expanded pathway choices - Some intersections have multiple choices, instead of only 2

  • Unusable pathways - Filler sometimes was used to fill a maze out while keeping it at the desired difficulty level.

  • Choices Made - the more choices that need to be made, the more likely the solver makes a mistake.

Let’s look at that last item - choices made - with the same mazes but some data to back it up. In our easy maze example how many choices did the solver have to make ? 85 ! That explains why this wasn’t a kids maze. You would never have a child make that many choices (even an easy maze with 85 is pushing it!). Below I have labeled the 85 instances with yellow circles:

And now our hard version maze. The initial number of choices off of the main branch is actually less than the easy version - 79 (shown counted in yellow again), but those branches also have choices - 121 in fact (shown with aqua circles). So 200 total possible choices. However, the number of choices a solver makes will vary based on which decisions they make off the main branch. You would have to be terrible at solving mazes to make all 200 !

Good luck with your maze designs !

If you like reading content like this check out my master list of case studies:

A Collection of Maze Design Case Studies to Improve Your Mazes

12 Maze Art Ideas : Unlocking Creative Possibilities

What I've Learned Making Mazes