Quadrilateral Tiles the Plane

Regular Patterns, Quadrilateral Tiles the Plane

Quadrilateral Tiles the Plane

Any quadrilateral, even a nonconvex quadrilateral, tiles the plane.  The interior angles sum to 360, hence 4 copies of the quadrilateral, each presenting a different angle, surround the vertex p.  Here are the rules for tiling.

Label the sides of the quadrilateral a b c and d, clockwise.  Place the first piece, with side a up.  All subsequent pieces will be translates of this piece, or translates of its 180° rotation.  There is no need to reflect the piece.  Place a rotated copy of this piece above the first, side a to side a.  Place the third piece to the right of the second, side d to side d.  Place the fourth piece in the corner formed by the first and third, side c to side c and side b to side b.  The four pieces surround a central vertex, their angles summing to 360°.  Repeat this throughout the plane.  Always put like sides together, and rotate every other piece.

As a corollary, every triangle tiles the plane.  Two triangles form a parallelogram, and that's a quadrilateral.