Mahjong Tiles Explained
A full Mahjong set has 144 tiles in seven groups. You don't need to know any of this to play Mahjong Solitaire, since you're only matching pictures, but it's good to know what you're looking at.
Play Mahjong SolitaireAt a Glance
| Group | Different tiles | Copies of each | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bamboo | 9 | 4 | 36 |
| Dots | 9 | 4 | 36 |
| Characters | 9 | 4 | 36 |
| Winds | 4 | 4 | 16 |
| Dragons | 3 | 4 | 12 |
| Flowers | 4 | 1 | 4 |
| Seasons | 4 | 1 | 4 |
| All tiles | 42 | 144 |
The Three Suits
Each suit runs from 1 to 9, with four copies of every tile. In Mahjong Solitaire, a tile only matches the same number in the same suit.
Bamboo
Bamboo tiles show sticks of bamboo, one stick for each number. The 1 is usually drawn as something special. Many traditional sets show a bird on it, and ours shows a single leafy stalk.
Dots
Also called circles or coins, since the design is often said to come from old round coins. You count the circles to read the number.
Characters
Each tile has a Chinese numeral on top and the character 萬 (wàn), meaning ten thousand, underneath. They're also called cracks or myriads. The small number in the corner on our tiles tells you which is which.
The Honor Tiles
Winds and dragons have no numbers. These are often called honors, and each one comes in four copies.
Winds
東 East, 南 South, 西 West and 北 North. Our tiles show E, S, W or N in the corner.
Dragons
The red dragon shows 中, meaning center. The green dragon shows 發, meaning fortune or prosperity. The white dragon is often blank or a plain frame, and that's how ours looks.
Flowers and Seasons
These are the odd ones out. There's just one copy of each, so they can't have exact twins. Instead, any flower matches any flower, and any season matches any season.
Flowers
In traditional sets, the four flowers are plum, orchid, chrysanthemum and bamboo. Ours use one simple flower in four colors, so they're easy to recognize as a family.
Seasons
Spring, summer, autumn and winter. Our season tiles use a star shape in four colors, so they don't get confused with flowers.
Mahjong and Mahjong Solitaire
The tiles come from mahjong, a four-player game that took shape in China in the 1800s. Mahjong Solitaire came much later, and it's a computer-age invention. It's generally credited to Brodie Lockard, who wrote a version on the PLATO computer system in 1981, and it reached a wide audience through a 1986 game called Shanghai. It borrows the tiles but none of the rules.