The Teichmüller space of a surface was introduced by O. Teichmüller in the 1930s. It is a basic tool in the study of Riemann's moduli spaces and the mapping class groups. These objects are fundamental in several fields of mathematics, including algebraic geometry, number theory, topology, geometry, and dynamics.

The original setting of Teichmüller theory is complex analysis. The work of Thurston in the 1970s brought techniques of hyperbolic geometry to the study of Teichmüller space and its asymptotic geometry. Teichmüller spaces are also studied from the point of view of the representation theory of the fundamental group of the surface in a Lie group