Playing card - wikipedia Playing card For other uses, including specific playing cards, see Playing card ( disambiguation ). Playing cards. A playing card is a piece of specially prepared heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic - coated paper, cotton - paper blend, or thin plastic, marked with distinguishing motifs and used as one of a set for playing card games. Playing cards are typically palm - sized for convenient handling, and were first invented in China during the Tang dynasty. Contents 1 History 1.1 Early history 1.2 Persia, Pakistan and Arabia 1.3 Egypt 1.4 Spread across Europe and early design changes 1.5 Later design changes 2 Modern deck formats 2.1 French suits 3 Symbols in Unicode 4 See also 5 Further reading 6 References 7 Cited sources 8 External links History Early history A Chinese printed playing card dated c. 1400 AD, Ming Dynasty, found near Turpan, measuring 9.5 by 3.5 cm. Further information : Chinese playing cards Playing cards may have been invented during the Tang dynasty around the 9th century AD as a result of the usage of woodblock printing technology. The first possible reference to card games comes from a 9th - century text known as the Collection of Miscellanea at Duyang, written by Tang dynasty writer Su E. It describes Princess Tongchang, daughter of Emperor Yizong of Tang, playing the `` leaf game '' in 868 with members of the clan of Wei Baoheng, the family of the princess ' husband. The first known book on the `` leaf '' game was called the Yezi Gexi and allegedly written by a Tang woman. It received commentary by writers of subsequent dynasties. The Song dynasty ( 960 -- 1279 ) scholar Ouyang Xiu ( 1007 -- 1072 ) asserts that the `` leaf '' game existed at least since the mid-Tang dynasty and associated its invention with the development of printed sheets as a writing medium. However, Ouyang also claims that the `` leaves '' were pages of a book used in a board game played with dice, and that the rules of the game were lost by 1067. Other games revolving around alcoholic drinking involved using playing cards of a sort from the Tang dynasty onward. However these cards did not contain suits or numbers. Instead, they were printed with instructions or forfeits for whoever drew them. The earliest dated instance of a card game involving cards with suits and numerals occurred on 17 July 1294 when `` Yan Sengzhu and Zheng Pig - Dog were caught playing cards ( zhi pai ) and that wood blocks for printing them had been impounded, together with nine of the actual cards. '' William Henry Wilkinson suggests that the first cards may have been actual paper currency which doubled as both the tools of gaming and the stakes being played for, similar to trading card games. Using paper money was inconvenient and risky so they were substituted by play money known as `` money cards ''. One of the earliest games in which we know the rules is Madiao, a trick - taking game, which dates to the Ming Dynasty ( 1368 -- 1644 ). Fifteenth century scholar Lu Rong described it is as being played with 38 `` money cards '' divided into four suits : 9 in coins, 9 in strings of coins ( which may have been misinterpreted as sticks from crude drawings ), 9 in myriads ( of coins or of strings ), and 11 in tens of myriads ( a myriad is 10,000 ). The two latter suits had Water Margin characters instead of pips on them with Chinese characters to mark their rank and suit. The suit of coins is in reverse order with 9 of coins being the lowest going up to 1 of coins as the high card. Persia, pakistan and arabia Despite the wide variety of patterns, the suits show a uniformity of structure. Every suit contains twelve cards with the top two usually being the court cards of king and vizier and the bottom ten being pip cards. Half the suits use reverse ranking for their pip cards. There are many motifs for the suit pips but some include coins, clubs, jugs, and swords which resemble later Mamluk and Latin suits. Michael Dummett speculated that Mamluk cards may have descended from an earlier deck which consisted of 48 cards divided into four suits each with ten pip cards and two court cards. Egypt Four Mamluk playing cards By the 11th century, playing cards were spreading throughout the Asian continent and later came into Egypt. The oldest surviving cards in the world are four fragments found in the Keir Collection and one in the Benaki Museum. They are dated to the 12th and 13th centuries ( late Fatimid, Ayyubid, and early Mamluk periods ). A near complete pack of Mamluk playing cards dating to the 15th century and of similar appearance to the fragments above was discovered by Leo Aryeh Mayer in the Topkapı Palace, Istanbul, in 1939. It is not a complete set and is actually composed of three different packs, probably to replace missing cards. The Topkapı pack originally contained 52 cards comprising four suits : polo - sticks, coins, swords, and cups. Each suit contained ten pip cards and three court cards, called malik ( king ), nā'ib malik ( viceroy or deputy king ), and thānī nā'ib ( second or under - deputy ). The thānī nā'ib is a non-existent title so it may not have been in the earliest versions ; without this rank, the Mamluk suits would structurally be the same as a Ganjifa suit. In fact, the word `` Kanjifah '' appears in Arabic on the king of swords and is still used in parts of the Middle East to describe modern playing cards. Influence from further east can explain why the Mamluks, most of whom were Central Asian Turkic Kipchaks, called their cups tuman which means myriad in Turkic, Mongolian and Jurchen languages. Wilkinson postulated that the cups may have been derived from inverting the Chinese and Jurchen ideogram for myriad ( 万 ). The Mamluk court cards showed abstract designs or calligraphy not depicting persons possibly due to religious proscription in Sunni Islam, though they did bear the ranks on the cards. Nā'ib would be borrowed into French ( nahipi ), Italian ( naibi ), and Spanish ( naipes ), the latter word still in common usage. Panels on the pip cards in two suits show they had a reverse ranking, a feature found in Madiao, Ganjifa, and old European card games like Ombre, Tarot, and Maw. A fragment of two uncut sheets of Moorish - styled cards of a similar but plainer style were found in Spain and dated to the early 15th century. Export of these cards ( from Cairo, Alexandria, and Damascus ), ceased after the fall of the Mamluks in the sixteenth century. The rules to play these games are lost but they are believed to be plain trick games without trumps. Spread across Europe and early design changes Further information : Tarot Knave of Coins from the oldest known European deck ( c. 1390 -- 1410 ). Four - suited playing cards are first attested in Southern Europe in 1365, and are likely derived from the Mamluk suits of cups, coins, swords, and polo - sticks, which are still used in traditional Latin decks. As polo was an obscure sport to Europeans then, the polo - sticks became batons or cudgels. Their presence is attested in Catalonia in 1371, 1377 in Switzerland, and 1380 in many locations including Florence and Paris. Wide use of playing cards in Europe can, with some certainty, be traced from 1377 onwards. This is the earliest known depiction of card play, a miniature in a 14th - century manuscript of Meliadus or Guiron le Courtois ( part of the romance also known as Palamedes ; also known as Le Roman du Roy Meliadus de Lennoys ), by Hélie de Boron. In the account books of Johanna, Duchess of Brabant and Wenceslaus I, Duke of Luxemburg, an entry dated May 14, 1379 reads : `` Given to Monsieur and Madame four peters, two forms, value eight and a half moutons, wherewith to buy a pack of cards ''. In his book of accounts for 1392 or 1393, Charles or Charbot Poupart, treasurer of the household of Charles VI of France, records payment for the painting of three sets of cards. Three playing cards by Antoine de Logiriera of Toulouse, c. 1500. The queen should be Anne, Duchess of Brittany, holding her crowned coat of arms, representing the union of Brittany and France. It is surrounded by a French motto ( modern spelling ) : `` Cœur de Femme trompe le monde '', `` Woman 's heart deceives the world '' in English. It uses Spanish suits but contains Queens instead of Knights. From about 1418 to 1450 professional card makers in Ulm, Nuremberg, and Augsburg created printed decks. Playing cards even competed with devotional images as the most common uses for woodcuts in this period. Most early woodcuts of all types were coloured after printing, either by hand or, from about 1450 onwards, stencils. These 15th - century playing cards were probably painted. The Flemish Hunting Deck, held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art is the oldest complete set of ordinary playing cards made in Europe from the fifteenth century. As cards spread from Italy to Germanic countries, the Latin suits were replaced with the suits of Leaves ( or Shields ), Hearts ( or Roses ), Bells, and Acorns, and a combination of Latin and Germanic suit pictures and names resulted in the French suits of trèfles ( clovers ), carreaux ( tiles ), cœurs ( hearts ), and piques ( pikes ) around 1480. The trèfle ( clover ) was probably derived from the acorn and the pique ( pike ) from the leaf of the German suits. The names `` pique '' and `` spade '', however, may have derived from the sword ( spade ) of the Italian suits. In England, the French suits were eventually used, although the earliest packs circulating may have had Latin suits. This may account to why the English called the clovers `` clubs '' and the pikes `` spades ''. In the late 14th century, Europeans changed the Mamluk court cards to represent European royalty and attendants. In a description from 1377, the earliest courts were originally a seated `` King '', an upper marshal that held his suit symbol up, and a lower marshal that held it down. The latter two correspond with the Ober and Unter cards found in German and Swiss playing cards. The Italians and Iberians replaced the Ober / Unter system with the `` Knight '' and `` Fante '' or `` Sota '' before 1390, perhaps to make the cards more visually distinguishable. In England, the lowest court card was called the `` Knave '' which originally meant male child ( cf German Knabe ), so in this context the character could represent the `` prince '', son to the King and Queen ; the meaning servant developed later. Queens appeared sporadically in packs as early as 1377, especially in Germany. Although the Germans abandoned the Queen before the 1500s, the French permanently picked it up and placed it under the King. Packs of 56 cards containing in each suit a King, Queen, Knight, and Knave ( as in tarot ) were once common in the 15th century. Unsun karuta with dragon cards characteristic of Portuguese decks. During the mid 16th century, Portuguese traders introduced playing cards to Japan. The first indigenous Japanese deck was the Tenshō karuta named after the Tenshō period. Later design changes During the French Revolution, the courts became Liberties, Equalities, and Fraternities. Fraternity of Hearts represents freedom of religion. Packs with corner and edge indices ( i.e. the value of the card printed at the corner ( s ) of the card ) enabled players to hold their cards close together in a fan with one hand ( instead of the two hands previously used ). The first such pack known with Latin suits was printed by Infirerra and dated 1693, but this feature was commonly used only from the end of the 18th century. The first Anglo - American deck with this innovation was the Saladee 's Patent, printed by Samuel Hart in 1864. In 1870, he and his cousins at Lawrence & Cohen followed up with the Squeezers, the first cards with indices that had a large diffusion. This was followed by the innovation of reversible court cards. This invention is attributed to a French card maker of Agen in 1745. But the French government, which controlled the design of playing cards, prohibited the printing of cards with this innovation. In central Europe ( Trappola cards ) and Italy ( Tarocco Bolognese ) the innovation was adopted during the second half of the 18th century. In Great Britain the pack with reversible court cards was patented in 1799 by Edmund Ludlow and Ann Wilcox. The Anglo - American pack with this design was printed around 1802 by Thomas Wheeler. Sharp corners wear out more quickly, and could possibly reveal the card 's value, so they were replaced with rounded corners. Before the mid-19th century, British, American, and French players preferred blank backs. The need to hide wear and tear and to discourage writing on the back led cards to have designs, pictures, photos, or advertising on the reverse. Imperial Bower, the earliest Joker, by Samuel Hart, c. 1863. It contains instructions for players unfamiliar with it. The United States introduced the Joker into the deck. It was devised for the game of Euchre, which spread from Europe to America beginning shortly after the American Revolutionary War. In Euchre, the highest trump card is the Jack of the trump suit, called the right bower ( from the German Bauer ) ; the second - highest trump, the left bower, is the Jack of the suit of the same color as trumps. The joker was invented c. 1860 as a third trump, the imperial or best bower, which ranked higher than the other two bowers. The name of the card is believed to derive from juker, a variant name for Euchre. The earliest reference to a Joker functioning as a wild card dates to 1875 with a variation of poker. Modern deck formats Italian Cups Coins Clubs Swords Spanish Cups Coins Clubs Swords Swiss German Roses Bells Acorns Shields German Hearts Bells Acorns Leaves French Hearts Tiles ( Diamonds ) Clovers ( Clubs ) Pikes ( Spades ) Main article : List of traditional card and tile packs See also : Suit ( cards ) Contemporary playing cards are grouped into three broad categories based on the suits they use : French, Latin, and German. Latin suits are used in the closely related Spanish and Italian formats. The Swiss German suits are distinct enough to merit their subcategory. Excluding Jokers and Tarot trumps, the French 52 - card deck preserves the number of cards in the original Mamluk deck, while Latin and German decks average fewer. Latin decks usually drop the higher - valued pip cards, while German decks drop the lower - valued ones. Within suits, there are regional or national variations called `` standard patterns '' because they are in the public domain, allowing multiple card manufacturers to copy them. Pattern differences are most easily found in the face cards but the number of cards per deck, the use of numeric indices, or even minor shape and arrangement differences of the pips can be used to distinguish them. Some patterns have been around for hundreds of years. Jokers are not part of any pattern as they are a relatively recent invention and lack any standardized appearance so each publisher usually puts their own trademarked illustration into their decks. The wide variation of jokers has turned them into collectible items. Any card that bore the stamp duty like the ace of spades in England or the ace of clubs in France are also collectible as that is where the manufacturer 's logo is usually placed. French suits Main article : French playing cards 52 French playing cards with jokers French decks come in a variety of patterns and deck sizes. The 52 - card deck is the most popular deck and includes 13 ranks of each suit with reversible `` court '' or face cards. Each suit includes an Ace, depicting a single symbol of its suit, a King, Queen, and Jack, each depicted with a symbol of their suit ; and ranks two through ten, with each card depicting that number of pips of its suit. As well as these 52 cards, commercial packs often include between one and four jokers, most often two. The piquet pack has all values from 2 through 6 in each suit removed for a total of 32 cards. It is popular in France, the Low Countries, Central Europe and Russia and is used to play Piquet, Belote, Bezique and Skat. 40 card French suited packs are common in northwest Italy ; these remove the 8s through 10s like Latin suited decks. 24 card decks, removing 2s through 8s are also sold in Austria and Bavaria to play Schnapsen. The 78 card Tarot Nouveau adds the Knight card between Queens and Jacks along with 21 numbered trumps and the unnumbered Fool. Symbols in Unicode Main article : Playing cards in Unicode The Unicode standard for text encoding on computers defines 8 characters for card suits in the Miscellaneous Symbols block, at U + 2660 -- 2667. Unicode 7.0 added a unified pack for French - suited Tarot Nouveau 's trump cards and the 52 cards of the modern French pack, with 4 Knights, together with a character for `` Playing Card Back '' and black, red, and white jokers in the block U + 1F0A0 -- 1F0FF. See also Wikiquote has quotations related to : Playing cards Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Cards, Playing. Wikimedia Commons has media related to Playing card. Geographic origin : Chinese playing cards French playing cards Ganjifa Hanafuda German playing cards Italian playing cards Karuta Spanish playing cards Swiss playing cards Tujeon Types of decks : Standard 52 - card deck Stripped deck Tarot Trading card Transformation playing card Trick deck Specific decks : Archaeology awareness playing cards Most - wanted Iraqi playing cards Politicards Zener cards ( parapsychology ) Uses : Card game Card manipulation Card money Card throwing House of cards Sleight of hand Terminology : Glossary of card game terms List of playing card nicknames Sources for further information : Cary Collection of Playing Cards International Playing - Card Society Musée Français de la Carte à Jouer Museum of Fournier de Naipes Playing card manufacturers Further reading Maltese playing cards. Bonello, Giovanni ( January 2005 ). Michael Cooper, ed. `` The Playing - card '' ( PDF ). Journal of the International Playing - Card Society. London. 32 ( 3 ) : 191 -- 197. ISSN 0305 - 2133. Archived from the original ( PDF ) on 29 April 2005. Griffiths, Antony. Prints and Printmaking British Museum Press ( in UK ), 2nd edn, 1996 ISBN 0 - 7141 - 2608 - X Hind, Arthur M. An Introduction to a History of Woodcut. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1935 ( in USA ), reprinted Dover Publications, 1963 ISBN 0 - 486 - 20952 - 0 Roman du Roy Meliadus de Leonnoys ( British Library MS Add. 12228, fol. 313v ), c. 1352 Singer, Samuel Weller ( 1816 ), Researches into the History of Playing Cards, R. Triphook References Jump up ^ `` Who invented playing cards ? - Quatr.us ''. quatr.us. Jump up ^ Needham 1986d, pp. 131 -- 132. ^ Jump up to : Wilkinson, W.H. ( 1895 ). `` Chinese Origin of Playing Cards ''. American Anthropologist. VIII ( 1 ) : 61 -- 78. doi : 10.1525 / aa. 1895.8. 1.02 a00070. ^ Jump up to : Lo, A. ( 2009 ). `` The game of leaves : An inquiry into the origin of Chinese playing cards ''. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 63 ( 3 ) : 389. doi : 10.1017 / S0041977X00008466. Jump up ^ Needham 2004, p. 328 `` it is also now rather well - established that dominoes and playing - cards were originally Chinese developments from dice. '' Jump up ^ Needham 2004, p. 334 `` Numbered dice, anciently widespread, were on a related line of development which gave rise to dominoes and playing - cards ( + 9th - century China ). '' Jump up ^ Zhou, Songfang ( 1997 ). `` On the Story of Late Tang Poet Li He ''. Journal of the Graduates Sun Yat - sen University. 18 ( 3 ) : 31 -- 35. ^ Jump up to : Needham, Joseph and Tsien Tsuen - hsuin. ( 1985 ). Science and Civilization in China : Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 1, Paper and Printing. Cambridge University Press., reprinted Taipei : Caves Books, Ltd. ( 1986 ) ^ Jump up to : Needham 2004, p. 132 ^ Jump up to : Parlett, David, `` The Chinese `` Leaf '' Game ``, March 2015. Jump up ^ Money - suited playing cards at The Mahjong Tile Set Jump up ^ Playing card basics at the International Playing - Card Society website Jump up ^ Dummett, Michael ( 1980 ). The Game of Tarot. Duckworth. p. 41. ISBN 0 7156 1014 7. Jump up ^ Mayer, Leo Ary ( 1939 ), Le Bulletin de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale, 38, pp. 113 -- 118, retrieved 2008 - 09 - 08. Jump up ^ International Playing Cards Society Journal, 30 - 3, page 139 Jump up ^ Pollett, Andrea `` The Playing - Card '', Vol. 31, No 1 pp. 34 -- 41. Jump up ^ Mamluk cards. Cards.old.no. Retrieved on 2015 - 05 - 10. Jump up ^ Wintle, Simon. Moorish playing cards at The World of Playing Cards. Retrieved 22 July 2015. Jump up ^ The Mamluk Cards. L-pollett.tripod.com. Retrieved on 2015 - 05 - 10. Jump up ^ No trump trick - taking games at pagat.com Jump up ^ Donald Laycock in Skeptical -- a Handbook of Pseudoscience and the Paranormal, ed Donald Laycock, David Vernon, Colin Groves, Simon Brown, Imagecraft, Canberra, 1989, ISBN 0 - 7316 - 5794 - 2, p. 67 Jump up ^ Andy 's Playing Cards - The Tarot And Other Early Cards - page XVII - the moorish deck. L-pollett.tripod.com. Retrieved on 2015 - 05 - 10. Jump up ^ `` Trionfi -- Tarot and its history ''. trionfi.co. Jump up ^ `` Trionfi -- Tarot and its history ''. trionfi.co. Jump up ^ J. Brunet i Bellet, Lo joch de naibs, naips o cartas, Barcelona, 1886, quote in the `` Diccionari de rims de 1371 : darrerament / per ensajar / de bandejar / los seus guarips / joch de nayps / de nit jugàvem, see also le site trionfi.com Jump up ^ Banzhaf, Hajo ( 1994 ), Il Grande Libro dei Tarocchi ( in Italian ), Roma : Hermes Edizioni, pp. 16, 192, ISBN 88 - 7938 - 047 - 8 Jump up ^ Olmert, Michael ( 1996 ). Milton 's Teeth and Ovid 's Umbrella : Curiouser & Curiouser Adventures in History, p. 135. Simon & Schuster, New York. ISBN 0 - 684 - 80164 - 7. Jump up ^ `` Coats of arms of Nantes and of Anne of Brittany ( Bretagne ) ''. Europeana. Retrieved 2014 - 02 - 10. Jump up ^ The complete proverb is `` Cœur de femme trompe le monde, car en elle malice abonde. '' ( `` Woman 's heart deceives the world, as in her malice abounds '' ), as reported by Gabriel Meurier in his Trésor des sentences, 1568. Jump up ^ `` Early Card painters and Printers in Germany, Austria and Flandern ( 14th and 15th century ) ''. trionfi.com. Jump up ^ `` Set of Fifty - Two Playing Cards - Label ''. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 19 May 2015. Jump up ^ `` Early Playing Cards Research ''. Retrieved 22 September 2014. Jump up ^ `` The Introduction of Playing - Cards to Europe ''. jducoeur.org. Jump up ^ History of Playing - Cards at International Playing - Card Society website Jump up ^ Wintle, Simon. Early references to Playing Cards at World of Playing Cards. Jump up ^ Barrington, Daines ( 1787 ). Archaeologia, or, Miscellaneous tracts relating to antiquity. 8. Society of Antiquaries of London. p. 141. Jump up ^ `` knave, n, 2 ''. Oxford English Dictionary ( 2 ed. ). Oxford, England : Oxford University Press. 1989. Jump up ^ Andy 's Playing Cards - Japanese and Korean Cards - page 1 ˇ historical and general notes. L-pollett.tripod.com. Retrieved on 2015 - 05 - 10. Jump up ^ International Playing Cards Society Journal 30 - 1 page 34 Jump up ^ Dawson, Tom and Judy. ( 2014 ) Hochman Encyclopedia of American Playing Cards. 2nd Ed. Ch 5. Jump up ^ International Playing Cards Society Journal. XXVII - 5 p. 186 ; and 31 - 1 p. 22 Jump up ^ Fryxell, David A. ( 2014 - 02 - 07 ) History Matters : Playing Cards. Family Tree Magazine. Jump up ^ `` Playing cards featuring logo of the FJ Holden ''. National Museum of Australia. Jump up ^ Parlett, David ( 1990 ), The Oxford Guide to Card Games, Oxford University Press, p. 190, ISBN 0 - 19 - 214165 - 1 Jump up ^ US Playing Card Co. -- A Brief History of Playing Cards ( archive.org mirror ) Jump up ^ Beal, George ( 1975 ). Playing cards and their story. New York : Arco Publishing Comoany Inc. p. 58 Jump up ^ Parlett, David ( 1990 ), The Oxford Guide to Card Games, Oxford University Press, p. 191, ISBN 0 - 19 - 214165 - 1 Jump up ^ `` Standard pattern notes ''. I-p-c-s.org. Retrieved 2015 - 05 - 10. Jump up ^ Unicode -- Playing Cards Block ( PDF ), retrieved 2014 - 11 - 08 Cited sources Needham, Joseph ( 2004 ), Science & Civilisation in China, V : 1, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0 - 521 - 05802 - 3 External links Look up playing card in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. History of the design of the court cards Courts on playing cards Deck of playing cards in SVG The History of Playing Cards discussed in 1987 by Roger Somerville History of Playing Cards World Web Playing Cards Museum History of playing cards The International Playing - Card Society Playing cards Standard 52 - card deck Suit / rank Ace King Queen Jack 10 9 8 7 6 5 Spades ♠ Ace King Queen Jack 10 9 8 7 6 5 Hearts ♥ Ace King Queen Jack 10 9 8 7 6 5 Diamonds Ace King Queen Jack 10 9 8 7 6 5 Clubs ♣ Ace King Queen Jack 10 9 8 7 6 5 Others Face card Pip card Knight Joker Card nicknames Stripped deck Unicode Poker Index of poker articles Outline of poker Overview Betting Cheating Glossary History Poker boom Tournaments Play Elements Chip Position Pot Playing card Hands Non-standard Tell Plays Aggression Bluff Check - raise Draw Isolation Protection Steal Variations Draw poker five - card draw Stud poker five - card stud seven - card stud Community card poker Texas hold ' em Omaha hold ' em Greek hold ' em Six - plus hold ' em Three card poker three card brag Four card poker Chinese poker Open - face Chinese poker Strategy Fundamental theorem of poker Morton 's theorem Pot odds Slow play Computing Computer poker player Online poker Poker tools Category Commons WikiProject Tarot Tarot games Cego French tarot Königrufen Minchiate Scarto Tapp - Tarock Tarocchini Troccas Troggu Occult tarot Antoine Court de Gébelin Etteilla Eliphas Levi Arthur Edward Waite Manly P Hall Paul Foster Case Major Arcana Trump cards The Fool I The Magician II The High Priestess III The Empress IV The Emperor V The Hierophant VI The Lovers VII The Chariot VIII ( XI ) Justice IX The Hermit X Wheel of Fortune XI ( VIII ) Strength XII The Hanged Man XIII Death XIV Temperance XV The Devil XVI The Tower XVII The Star XVIII The Moon XIX The Sun XX Judgement XXI The World Minor Arcana Suit cards Coins / Pentacles / Diamonds Wands / Staves / Rods / Clubs Cups / Goblets / Hearts Swords / Spades Decks ( French suits ) Cego Industrie und Glück Tarot Nouveau Tiertarock Decks ( Latin suits ) Bolognese Marseilles Minchiate Piemontese Rider - Waite Siciliano Swiss 1JJ Thoth Visconti - Sforza Related articles Cartomancy Hermetic Qabalah Mantegna Tarocchi Playing card Trick - taking game Triomphe Trionfo Trionfi ( cards ) Category WikiProject Card Games WikiProject Occult GND : 4056228 - 1 NDL : 00573296 Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Playing_card&oldid=804926867 '' Categories : History of card decks Playing cards Game equipment Chinese inventions Paper products Tarot Hidden categories : CS1 Italian - language sources ( it ) Articles containing Chinese - language text All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from December 2011 Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Talk Contents About Wikipedia Wikiquote Afrikaans Ænglisc Asturianu বাংলা Беларуская Беларуская ( тарашкевіца ) ‎ Български Bosanski Brezhoneg Català Čeština Dansk Deutsch Eesti Ελληνικά Español Esperanto فارسی Fiji Hindi Français Gaeilge 贛 語 ગુજરાતી 한국어 हिन्दी Hrvatski Bahasa Indonesia Interlingua Iñupiak Íslenska Italiano עברית Basa Jawa ಕನ್ನಡ ქართული Latina Latviešu Lietuvių Malagasy मराठी مصرى Bahasa Melayu Монгол Nederlands नेपाली 日本 語 Norsk پنجابی Polski Português Русский Саха тыла Simple English Slovenčina Slovenščina Српски / srpski Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Suomi Svenska Tagalog தமிழ் తెలుగు ไทย Türkçe Українська اردو Tiếng Việt Võro Winaray 粵語 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 11 October 2017, at 23 : 48. 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Question: where did the deck of cards come from
Answer: China