What is mah jongg?

The short answer

Mahjong is a game for four players, played with 144 engraved tiles instead of cards. Each player holds thirteen tiles, draws one and discards one on every turn, and tries to be the first to arrange fourteen tiles into four sets and a pair. If you have played rummy, the rhythm will feel familiar: draw, think, throw one away.

The tiles are what make it look strange the first time. There are three suits numbered 1 to 9, four winds, three dragons and eight flower tiles, and most of them carry Chinese characters. Once you know what each one stands for, the game is far less mysterious than it looks.

Mahjong, mah jongg or mah-jong?

All three are the same game. The Chinese name is 麻將, májiàng in Mandarin. An older name, still used in Cantonese and in Japanese, is 麻雀, which means sparrow. The 1 of bamboo is usually drawn as a bird for the same reason.

The double-g spelling comes from the United States. In 1920 an American named Joseph Park Babcock, who had worked for Standard Oil in China, published an English rule book and trademarked the name “Mah-Jongg” for the sets he sold. Rival companies had to call the game something else, which is how “mah-jong” and “mahjong” spread. Today American players tend to write mah jongg, often shortened to mahj, while most of the rest of the world writes mahjong.

Where the game came from

Mahjong is younger than its reputation. You will find claims that it dates back to Confucius, but those stories were mostly sales talk from the 1920s. Historians place its beginnings in the middle of the nineteenth century, in eastern China around Ningbo and Shanghai, where it grew out of older card games with money suits. The three suits still echo those cards: the dots began as coins, the bamboo sticks as strings of coins, and the characters as large sums of money.

By the early twentieth century the game was played across China, with each region keeping its own house rules. That is still true. Ask two families how they score a hand and you may get two different answers, and both will be right for their table.

How it reached America

Babcock's sets and rule book arrived just as the 1920s were looking for a new pastime, and mahjong became a full-blown craze. Department stores sold sets, newspapers printed columns about it, and people threw themed parties. The craze faded within a few years, partly because every group was playing by slightly different rules.

In 1937 a group of players in New York City founded the National Mah Jongg League to settle the rules once and for all. The League introduced a card listing the hands that count as a win, and it issues a new card every year. The yearly card, jokers in the tile set, and a tile-passing ritual called the Charleston turned American mah jongg into its own distinct game.

The main ways people play today

All of these use the same basic idea of drawing, discarding and building sets. They differ in the tiles used, what counts as a winning hand and how it is scored.

If you are just starting, learn the shared core first. Our guide to how to play mahjong follows the Hong Kong game, which has the fewest special rules, and points out where American mah jongg changes things.

Mahjong solitaire is a different game

If you searched for mahjong and found a matching puzzle, that is mahjong solitaire. It borrows the tiles but none of the rules: the tiles are stacked in a pile, and you remove them two at a time by matching free tiles. The first computer version was written in 1981 by Brodie Lockard, and the puzzle has been a favorite on home computers ever since.

It is also a good way to learn the tiles. After a few boards you will know a five of dots from a five of bamboo at a glance, which makes your first four-player game much easier. Our page on how to play mahjong solitaire explains the rules.

Common questions

Is mahjong hard to learn?

The turn itself is simple: draw a tile, discard a tile. What takes practice is reading your hand and deciding what to keep. Most people can play a slow first game after half an hour with the rules, and feel comfortable after an evening or two.

How many people do you need?

Four is standard. Three-player versions are common in parts of Asia, and there are two-player versions too; see mahjong for two players.

Do I need to read Chinese?

No. You only need to recognize about a dozen characters, and most sets sold in the United States print small numbers or letters in the corner of each tile. Our guide to the tiles shows every one.