Every variant is built from the same pieces and the same handful of moves. This page covers that common ground once. Read it before any variant page.
We always name the variant. Nothing here says "mahjong does X" without saying which mahjong, since the answer genuinely changes table to table. Where the variants part ways, this page says so – and each variant's own chapter takes over from there.
Each suit runs 1–9 with four copies of every tile: 36 tiles per suit, 108 in total. They descend from old Chinese money.
Drawn as stylized rope-strings of coins, not plant stalks – a translation slip that stuck. Green throughout, with red worked into exactly three tiles, always the same spot on a faithful set.
Pattern to remember: red only ever appears on the 5, 7, and 9 – middle stick, top stick, center column. Every other Bamboo tile is solid green.
Simples & terminals. Within each suit, the 1s and 9s are terminals (幺九), the edges of the run – ringed in gold above. The 2 through 8 are simples (中張牌), the middle of the run. Many scoring conditions require a hand built entirely from one or the other.
Honour tiles have no rank and no suit: they cannot form sequences, only triplets and pairs. Seven kinds, four copies each. Every variant uses the full set.
Characters are written in blue on Chinese and Southeast Asian sets, and in black on Japanese sets. The green dragon is always green on every standard set – a "red" green dragon sometimes listed for Japanese sets is an error.
Your seat wind and the table's prevailing wind score bonuses in most variants; each chapter covers how.
Beyond the 136 core tiles, most variants add bonus tiles: set aside when drawn, replaced from the wall, scored separately. They never form part of the four-sets-and-a-pair structure.
Four unnumbered creature tiles – Cat, Mouse, Rooster, Centipede. How they score depends entirely on the variant, so each is named below.
Beyond the shared core, a few variants add tiles entirely their own. Each is named plainly below – the owning chapter is the full reference.
Vietnamese mahjong keeps an "inner flower" wildcard system that vanished from the rest of the family – the largest special-tile roster of any variant here.
Each Emperor and Empress carries its own number, one through four, matching the Character tiles' numeral-over-glyph layout.
Eight jokers split cleanly by color – the first four blue (suit-family jokers), the last four red (honor and bonus jokers):
Almost every winning hand is four sets plus one pair; a small number of variants stretch or replace this shape, and say so in their own chapters. A set is one of three shapes, plus the pair.
Concealed vs. exposed. A set built entirely from your own draws is concealed; a set completed by claiming a discard is exposed. The distinction drives scoring in many variants: several high-value hands require staying fully concealed.
Strip away the scoring and every variant runs the same loop. Play moves counter-clockwise. On your turn you draw one tile and discard one. Between turns, others may interrupt to claim your discard. The cycle ends when someone completes a hand.
Names for these moments shift from table to table; each variant's chapter uses its own terms and defines them on arrival.
You know the pieces. Now pick your table.
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