19 Surprising Things You Didn't Know About IKEA

Whether your yearly visit brings you to the brink of self-smothering in a giant bin of throw pillows, or you're a superfan with an unquenchable taste for their STILL INLAND (marinated herring with onions and carrots), it’s hard to escape IKEA's global influence. From the insane scale of their wood consumption to the fact that its name is actually just an acronym meaningful only to its eccentric founder, we rounded up 19 things you probably didn’t know about IKEA. 1. Ikea sells one Billy bookshelf every 10 seconds. It is the company's most popular product. 2. Ikea uses approximately 1% of the world's entire commercial supply of wood. 3. Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Ikea, has a net worth of $42.5 billion. 4. Kamprad was once denied entry at a gala when he showed up to receive a Businessman of the Year Award because he had arrived via bus. 5. Kamprad also once admitted to having Nazi ties as a member of the fascist New Swedish Movement between 1942 and 1945. And in 1994 he wrote an apology to his entire company. 6. Every year, Ikea delivers around 800 million feet of products. That's enough product to fill more than 9,000 Olympic-size pools. 7. There are approximately 9,500 home furnishing products in the Ikea range. 8. In the U.K., 1 in 5 people sleep on an Ikea mattress. 9. Ikea employs more than 131,000 people worldwide. 10. In 2012, there were an estimated 655 million visitors to Ikea stores. 11. In 20l6, Ikea will convert its entire lighting range to LED. Only LED lamps and bulbs will be sold from then on out. 12. Ikea products are named rather than numbered because founder Kamprad is dyslexic. 13. Ikea is an acronym that stands for Ingvar Kamprad (founder), Elmtaryd (the farm where he grew up), and Agunnaryd (his hometown). 14. There are more copies of the Ikea catalog printed each year than the Bible. 15. Ikea has lowered its prices by an average of 2% each year since 2000. 16. Ikea is building a 27-acre town in East London. 17. The largest IKEA store in the world is located in Stockholm, Sweden. It covers 594,167 square feet, which is bigger than 10 American football fields. 18. IKEA was the first company to feature a portrayal of a gay relationship in one of its ads. 19. Since 1960, Ikea has sold more than 11.6 billion Swedish meatballs in the U.K. alone. Credits: buzzfeed.com Share this story on Facebook with your friends.