6 articles · read in order

Origins in China

Where mahjong really came from: the money-suited card games of the Qing dynasty, the Ningbo story, the meaning of the name, and how a regional game spread across China.

1Origins in China

The Origins of Mahjong: What Historians Actually Know

Mahjong appeared in eastern China in the second half of the nineteenth century, built on older card games. Legends credit Confucius or a Ming general; the evidence points to the Yangtze delta around the 1860s–1880s.

3 min read

2Origins in China

Money-Suited Cards and Madiao: Mahjong's Ancestors

Long before tiles, Chinese players used narrow paper cards in money suits. Madiao and the drawing games that followed gave mahjong its three suits, its numbers and its idea of collecting sets.

3 min read

3Origins in China

What Does "Mahjong" Mean?

The game's name is usually written 麻將 or 麻雀 and is often translated as "sparrow". The many spellings — mah-jongg, mahjongg, majiang, mājan — tell the story of its journey around the world.

2 min read

4Origins in China

How Mahjong Spread Across China

From the treaty ports of the Yangtze delta, mahjong spread along rivers, railways and trade networks to become a national pastime by the 1920s, developing regional rule sets as it went.

2 min read

5Origins in China

Mahjong in Late Qing and Republican Society

In the last decades of the Qing dynasty and the Republic of China, mahjong moved from merchant homes to every level of society — admired as sociable, criticised as a vice, and played everywhere.

2 min read

6Origins in China

Mahjong in the People's Republic: Ban and Revival

After 1949 mahjong was discouraged as a form of gambling and bourgeois idleness, and during the Cultural Revolution sets were destroyed. Since the 1980s it has returned as a mass pastime and an official sport.

2 min read