page_title: Mahjong tiles
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: Mahjong tiles / Development
caption_attribution_description: English: Game Pieces for Mah Jong or Chinese Dominos, late 19th century. Bamboo, bone, with red, blue and green polychrome, Each piece: 11/16 x 9/16 x 3/8 in. (1.8 x 1.4 x 1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Long Island Historical Society, 28.779. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 28.779_SL1.jpg)
context_page_description: Mahjong tiles are tiles of Chinese origin that are used to play mahjong as well as mahjong solitaire and other games. Although they are most commonly tiles, they may refer to playing cards with similar contents as well.
context_section_description: The earliest surviving mahjong sets date to the 1870s when the game was largely confined to Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Jiangsu. They already exhibited various traits found in modern sets. The core of the set is the 108 suited tiles which were inherited from Chinese money-suited playing cards. The Wind honor tiles and the Four Seasons tiles were also found in the earliest sets. The honor tiles known as Arrows (Dragons in English) developed to their current form by 1890 concurrent with a new style of play called Zhōngfā (中發). Flower tiles, once known as Outer Flowers (Chinese: 外花; pinyin: wàihuā; Jyutping: ngoi⁶faa¹), were not universally accepted until the 1920s. In contrast, many early sets contained wild cards with specific powers known as Inner Flowers (Chinese: 裏花; pinyin: lǐhuā; Jyutping: loei⁵faa¹) which disappeared from most of China but are still found in Vietnam and Thailand.
caption: Glover's set (early 1870s)
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