Use this interactive guide to identify every tile in Mahjong Solitaire. Click a tile to see its name, suit, cultural meaning, and matching rule.
Select a tile above to see its details.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the three main suits in Mahjong?
The three main suits are Dots (circles), Bamboo (bamboos), and Characters (wan). Each suit has tiles numbered 1 through 9, and every number appears four times in a full set.
How do Flowers and Seasons match?
In Mahjong Solitaire, any Flower tile can match with any other Flower tile, and any Season tile can match with any other Season tile. They are the only tiles that do not need to be identical.
What are Honor tiles?
Honor tiles are the Winds (East, South, West, North) and Dragons (White, Green, Red). Each honor tile must match with its exact pair.
How many tiles are in a Mahjong Solitaire set?
A traditional set has 144 tiles: 108 suited tiles (36 Bamboo, 36 Characters, and 36 Dots, numbered 1 to 9 in each suit), 16 Winds, 12 Dragons, four Flowers, and four Seasons. Mahjong Solitaire uses this same 144-tile set to build its layouts.
Some sets also include eight Jokers and spare blank tiles for the American four-player game. Mahjong Solitaire does not use those, so for this solitaire version you only need the 144.
Which Mahjong tiles are the luckiest?
In Chinese tradition the Red Dragon (中, zhōng) is the most auspicious tile, associated with prosperity and success, and it is often the tile people keep as a charm. Bamboo 8 is read as a prosperity symbol because the character 發 (fā) resembles the arrangement of the eight bamboo sticks. These are cultural associations rather than rules — they do not affect play in Mahjong Solitaire.
What is the White Dragon tile called?
The White Dragon has several names: White Dragon, White Tiger, or simply Baak in Cantonese. Because it is often printed as a blank frame or a plain rectangle rather than a picture, some players mistake it for a spare tile. It is a real honor tile and matches only with another White Dragon.
Is the 1 Bamboo tile a bird?
Yes. The 1 of Bamboo is traditionally drawn as a sparrow or peacock perched on a bamboo stalk rather than as a single stick, which is why the game is sometimes called the "sparrow game." It still matches only with another 1 of Bamboo.