The 34 basic mahjong tiles are presented here. A full set of mahjong tiles contains four
identical tiles of each of these.
1.1 The three suits
There are three suits, each has tiles numbered from one to nine:
1) Circles
2) Bamboo
3) Characters
The one of bamboo is often decorated with a bird, the design of which often varies between
mahjong sets. The ones and nines are called terminal tiles.
Three red fives are used, one in each suit:
1.2 Honours
In addition to the suit tiles, there are seven different honour tiles: four winds and three
dragons. The winds are shown in the order: east-south-west-north. The dragons are
shown in the order: red-white-green. The design of the white dragon varies between
mahjong sets; usually it is either a blank tile or a blue frame is depicted.
Winds: Dragons
1.3 Additional tiles
With four of each of the above tiles, a mahjong set consists of 136 tiles. Sometimes mahjong
sets contain further tiles: flower, season or joker tiles, which are not used in riichi
mahjong.
1.4 Additional equipment
Mahjong sets often have markers for indicating the prevalent wind and sticks used for
keeping score and used also for counters and riichi bets. The set should also come with
at least two dice.
Dragons
