www.matttidball.com During the Tang Dynasty, it was popular for Chinese ponds to have carps. As the result of a genetic mutation one of these carp displayed "gold" (actually yellowish orange) rather than silver coloration. This mutation is associated with a dominant gene which also makes the breeding of this trait rather easy. The gold-coloured strain became popular for keeping in containers. Afterwards, the people began to breed the gold variety instead of the silver, and began to keep them into small containers to watch. In AD 1162 the Empress ordered the building of a pond to collect the red and gold variety of those carps. By this time people outside the royal family were forbidden to keep gold fishes. An order was given to the keepers to kill all the fish that were gold in colour because yellow was the royal colour and the court was offended. This is why there are more orange goldfish than yellow goldfish, even though genetically yellow is easier to breed for. As bred in captivity, more mutations occurred producing more colours and fancy goldfish appeared. According to old books, the occurrence of other colours were first recorded in AD 1276. In the Ming Dynasty it was recorded the first occurrence of fancy tailed goldfish. In AD 1502, goldfish were introduced to Japan, where it had been developed the Ryukin and Tosakin varieties. In AD 1611, Goldfish were introduced to Portugal, the starting point from which they were introduced to other parts of Europe. The goldfish was finally introduced to North America in AD 1874. - Wikipedia