According to one version, the beginning of its existence can be considered the invention of an abacus of Chinese origin (suanpan) more than 5 thousand years ago. There is a legend that the invention of the abacus was first inspired by hunters. They had to count their loot, so they started setting pieces of wood on sticks. Thus, the great-great-grandfather of the first abacus appeared. In the XVI century, the Chinese abacus suanpan became interested in Japan. The Japanese abacus used the fivefold number system and was called soroban. The abacus has been improved and changed for 400 years. The soroban has been actively used for teaching children in Asian countries for many centuries. Europe and America are actively interested in soroban in the XXI century.
The soroban was repeatedly modified and improved. Nowadays the Japanese abacus is used in the form in which they had been used in trade in the 40s of the last century.
The method of calculating using an abacus is included in the UNESCO, the list of intangible cultural heritage. The abacus is a unique invention of humanity. It allowed ancient people to quickly add, subtract, multiply and divide multi-digit numbers, as well as find square and cubic roots. Modern Japanese people believe that even today, learning to count using soroban has a number of undeniable advantages in comparison with traditional counting on paper. This method trains the brain by increasing the number of neural connections, and promotes the intelligence and creativity development.
In Japan, comparative studies have shown that those students who were taught numeracy using soroban, later mastered mathematics and other subjects more successfully than those who were taught numeracy according to the current accepted method in Europe (on paper, or even on calculators). At the beginning of the XXI century, the study of soroban in Japan remains mandatory in primary school.