Mahjong came from China, where it appeared during the Qing dynasty, around the middle of the 1800s. Researchers think it grew out of older Chinese card and domino-style games. Its first known home is often placed along the coast near Ningbo, though accounts differ. Popular stories that credit Confucius or ancient courts are legends, and there is no evidence for them. The National Mah Jongg League itself notes that the exact origins are wrapped in story.
What the evidence suggests
Most researchers place the game’s start in the second half of the 1800s. As the League’s own overview puts it, recent research points to early versions appearing about 150 years ago as a variant of card games. Written mentions of the game become more common toward the end of that century. By the early 1900s, it appears in Chinese novels describing the lives of officials.
Accounts often mention the area around Ningbo and Shanghai as early centers of play, though the evidence does not settle exactly where it began. Some accounts credit a specific person with changing the game, but those claims are hard to confirm.
Earlier games
Mahjong shares features with older games:
- Paper card games. China had long traditions of playing cards with money-based suits. Some scholars see the three mahjong suits as descending from them.
- Domino-style games. Tiles made of bone or bamboo appeared in other Chinese games.
- Rummy-style play. Drawing and discarding to build sets is an old idea, found in many games worldwide.
The legends
These stories are popular, and they are fun, but they are stories.
Confucius. One tale says the philosopher invented the game around 500 BCE, and that he loved birds, hence the sparrow. There is no evidence for this. The game appeared more than two thousand years after his time.
A royal secret. Another says the game was kept for Chinese royalty. There is no good evidence for that either.
A general’s game. Yet another says a general invented it to entertain troops. The League’s overview mentions this tale along with the others, as a story.
How it spread
Over a few decades, mahjong spread through China. Then, in the early 1900s, it reached foreign residents there, and through them the wider world. Joseph Park Babcock, an American who lived in China, published an English rule book in 1920. Read about what happened next in America.
Mahjong also spread widely through Asia, and local styles grew up in many places, including Japan, where Riichi developed.
Where sources disagree
- Exact date. Some accounts say the 1850s, and others later.
- Exact place. Ningbo is often named, but other regions are mentioned too.
- Inventor. No single inventor is accepted.
If you want to go further, Tom Sloper’s timeline in our sources is a useful place to start.