The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that lead unambiguously through a convoluted layout to a goal.
The term "labyrinth" is generally synonymous with "maze", but can also connote specifically a unicursal pattern.
In building a maze by "adding walls", one lays out a set of obstructions within an open area.
Intuitively, if one pulled and stretched out the paths in the maze in the proper way, the result could be made to resemble a tree.
Examples are: India Chartwell Castle in Johannesburg claims to have the biggest known uninterrupted hedgerow maze in the Southern world, with over 900 conifers.
[54] The colonial city of Camagüey, Cuba, founded in 1528, layout resembles a real maze, with narrow, short streets always turning in one direction or another.
After the release of Namco's Pac-Man in 1980, many maze games followed its conventions of completing a level by traversing all paths and a way of temporarily turning the tables on pursuers.