About Mahjong

Origins: China in the 19th Century

Mahjong (麻將, má jiàng — literally "sparrow tiles") emerged in China during the late Qing dynasty, most likely in the 1870s. While its precise origins are debated, the game is believed to have developed from earlier Chinese card games including Madiao (马吊) and the domino tradition of Pai Gow. The 144-tile set with its suits, honors, and special tiles crystallized into the form we know today within roughly a generation.

By the early 20th century, Mahjong had spread from China to Japan, Southeast Asia, and eventually the Western world. Joseph Park Babcock, an American Standard Oil employee stationed in China, is credited with introducing the game to the United States in 1920, publishing an English rulebook and trademark under the name "Mah-Jongg." The game became a cultural phenomenon in 1920s America before gradually fading from mass popularity.

The Tile-Matching Revolution

Mahjong the board game is a four-player skill game involving drawing and discarding tiles to build winning hands. Mahjong Solitaire is an entirely different invention — a single-player puzzle game that uses Mahjong tiles but plays more like solitaire card games than competitive Mahjong.

Mahjong Solitaire was created by Brodie Lockard in 1981 on a PLATO computer system at the University of Illinois. He called it "Mah-Jong" and programmed the iconic Turtle layout as the default arrangement. The game spread through PLATO terminals across university campuses before the platform declined.

The game gained mass market exposure in 1986 when Activision published Shanghai — Brodie Lockard's commercialized version — for the Macintosh and Amiga. Shanghai sold over 10 million copies and established Mahjong Solitaire as one of the most popular single-player tile games ever created. Variants followed on every platform: Windows, DOS, consoles, and eventually mobile and web.

Mahjong Solitaire Today

Mahjong Solitaire is one of the most-played casual games in the world, with hundreds of millions of active players across web, mobile, and desktop platforms. Its appeal crosses age groups and cultures — the combination of relaxing visual pattern-matching, strategic depth, and quick sessions makes it universally accessible.

Modern Mahjong Solitaire games have expanded the original Turtle layout to dozens of variants, added themed tile sets, and introduced features like undo, shuffle, and scoring. A2Z Mahjong preserves the classic five-layout experience with the original tile aesthetics and simple, distraction-free gameplay.

About A2Z Mahjong

A2Z Mahjong is part of the Grande Web Network — a collection of free word game, puzzle, and trivia sites. Our goal is to deliver the cleanest, fastest Mahjong Solitaire experience on the web: no ads during gameplay, no downloads, no sign-ups, and no performance overhead. Just the tiles.

Play any of our five classic layouts — Turtle, Pyramid, Fortress, Cross, and Butterfly — free in your browser, on any device.