Mahjong tiles

Mahjong tiles (Chinese: 麻將牌 or 麻雀牌; pinyin: májiàngpái; Japanese: 麻雀牌; rōmaji: mājampai) 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 also refer to playing cards with similar contents as well.

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), were not universally accepted until the 1920s. In contrast, many early sets contained wild cards with specific powers known as Inner Flowers (裏花; lǐhuā) which disappeared from most of China but are still found in Vietnam and Thailand.

A set of Mahjong tiles will usually differ from place to place. It usually has at least 136 tiles, most commonly 144, although sets originating from the United States or Southeast Asia will have more usually in the form of flowers or jokers. Some sets also contain blank tiles which owners can use to replace damaged or missing tiles.

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Wikipedia