Mainland regionals

Assessment

Confidence

catalogued listed in a variant catalogue with tile counts and hand sizes, but no rules text verified

Evidence

corroborated two or more independent sources agree on the facts that define this variant

Cross-comparison

What each source was read to say, set side by side. The numbers are the sources above.

• [1] states there are over 100 variants of Mainland Mahjong today, but that as late as 1990 regional variants shared many rules; in the 1990s they began deviating, Sichuan/Chengdu added Bloody rules, some dropped Joys, some removed honours, some built on Old Style and some on an additive New Style. Chinese Classical is said to have been allegedly invented in Ningbo in the 1900s, with later pattern additions referred to as Shanghai New Style
• [7] Read at the source. Sloper lists the mainland styles one by one rather than as a group: Hunan/Sichuan/Tibetan (108 tiles, suits only, no chows), a Sichuan 72-tile game reported by Dragon Chang that he calls 'an entirely different way of playing', Beijing (144 tiles, 'assumed') and Nanjing. For Sichuan he notes 'Books: none in English'; most entries rest on newsgroup correspondents
• [2] Read at the source. The regional list names about twenty mainland styles (Chongqing, Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Haining, Ningbo, Fujian, Fuzhou, Chengdu, Tianjin, Taiyuan, Jiangnan, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Nanchang, Hefei, Wuhan, Changsha and others). It says mahjong was banned after 1949 as a gambling game and 'a symbol of capitalist corruption', returned after the Cultural Revolution, and was formally allowed again in 1985 (citing Carlisle 2009 and a web page)
• [3] Read at the source. 'The game was outlawed when the Communists took power in 1949 … It was not until 1985 that the ban on the game, sans gambling, was lifted.' Opens on 2,380 players in Dujiangyan, Sichuan, setting a Guinness record
• [8] Read at the source. Argues mahjong took its fixed form in Ningbo and spread nationwide, quoting Fan Zengxiang (late Qing): '撮麻雀之戏，二十年前起于宁波，今遍天下矣' (the game arose in Ningbo twenty years ago and is now everywhere)
• [9] Read at the source. '已开放全国100多种麻将 做正宗的地方玩法' (more than 100 mahjong styles from across the country, played the authentic local way), naming 血流红中, 血战换三张, 卡五星, 红中赖子杠, Changsha, Harbin, Guangdong 推倒胡, Nanchang, Fuzhou 17-tile, Nanjing, Shanghai, Hefei and Guiyang 捉鸡
• [4] Read at the source. Changsha adds its own hands (四喜, 板板胡, 六六顺, 缺一色) and 扎鸟; Sichuan plays 打缺门 and 刮风下雨; Wuhan uses a wild tile (赖子) and 二五八 pairs; Guangdong has four schools (鸡平胡, 推倒胡, 新章, 老章). It closes that the games differ only 'slightly' and 'the overall way of playing and the winning rules are the same'
• [1] Re-read at the source on 2026-10-16. The history says mahjong was suppressed from 1949, that restrictions were loosened on the mainland in the late 1970s, and that by the 1980s 'Mahjong Fever' swept the mainland with each region playing its own flavour, mostly on Old Style rules. In the 1990s the regional variants 'began deviating more and more', and MCR (1998) largely halted New Style development. It calls the events of 1949 the Cultural Revolution
• [10] Read at the source. The timeline puts the creation of 'a bunch of local Mainland variants' in the 1980s, after the PRC eased restrictions, and the rise of Sichuan 'Bloody' rules in Chengdu in the 1990s. It says the Mainland Variants began as New Style Chinese Classical rulesets and later adopted HKOS's simplified scoring, that both Taiwan and the mainland cracked down on gambling in the 1950s, and that in the 2010s apps spread once-regional variants worldwide
• [11] Read at the source. In May 1980 the Ministry of Public Security and six other bodies banned making and selling mahjong tiles, restating a 1957 ban, and the Ministry restated the ban on 13 December 1983. On 16 October 1985 an internal notice said police would no longer interfere with making and selling mahjong and cards and would act only against gambling; it was 'not to be published or broadcast'. Anhui held the first sanctioned competition in March 1986, and mahjong primers came back into print from 1986. In 1996 a State Sports Commission meeting of 20 experts from 9 provinces and 13 cities first proposed mahjong as a national sport
• [12] Read at the source. It says there are 'countless variations on the rules, depending on the region' and that mahjong was banned under the PRC along with other gambling. In 1985, when play became legal again, the public security authorities issued a document separating gambling from the game. In 2017 Wuhan defined 'mahjong as leisure' (family and friends, ten players or fewer, stakes under 1,000 yuan a head) as distinct from illegal gambling
• [13] Read at the source. It says dozens of local games, each with its own character, have grown up across China (Hangzhou, Sichuan, Guangzhou, Suzhou). The first China Mahjong Open (Hangzhou, March 2023) had Sichuan mahjong and Guobiao as official events and Hangzhou mahjong 2v2 as a promotional event. It was run by the Mahjong Sports Competition and Training Centre, which MIL authorised in November 2022 at the Hangzhou branch of the Chinese Qiyuan, and players qualified through an online grading system
• [14] Read at the source for this node. It says different regions have produced 'extremely rich' rule sets because their cultures differ, that there are dozens of styles known by place-name prefixes (Sichuan, Guangdong, Nanjing, Suzhou), and that even within Sichuan each city's rules differ. It then describes Chengdu, Chongqing and Guangdong play, and treats the 1998 national rules as a separate competition game
• [15] Read at the source for this node. It ranks 'original local rules' (the forms popular in each region) below local rules reformed for competition and certified by the MIL rules committee, and those below the MIL-certified rules: MCR, riichi and Sichuan. Regional (B) and qualifying (C) events may use reformed local rules; national (A) and world (S) events use only the certified ones
• [5] Read at the source for this node. It calls Sichuan Blood Battle one of the most widely recognised and adopted rule sets in China, and gives a tournament form of it: no chows, one missing suit, play continuing after a win, a three-fan cap and game scores meant to reduce luck
• [6] Read at the source. MIL's codification of Sichuan Bloody Rules: no chows, a voided suit needed to win, several winners allowed on one discard, and play continuing after a win until three players have won or the wall runs out

Reading it

The group holds up as a description. Sources independent of the chart agree that the mainland plays many local games named after places, from 'dozens' (Qianjiang Evening News and Chinese National Geography, 2023) to 'over 100' (the wiki; Tencent), with rules that differ even from city to city within Sichuan. The dating needs revising. The canonical overview already places regional flavours in the 1980s and only further divergence in the 1990s, and the wiki's own timeline (chart ref 7) says the local mainland variants were created in the 1980s. Its claim that restrictions eased in the late 1970s is contradicted by the record. Making and selling tiles was banned in May 1980 and again in December 1983, and only an internal Ministry of Public Security notice of 16 October 1985 told police to stop interfering (Chen 2024 quotes the notices; The World of Chinese, 2019, quotes the same sentence). Primers came back into print from 1986. Codification is recent and thin. MIL ranks 'original local rules' below reformed ones and certifies only Sichuan, which also has World Mahjong Tour rules and a 2024 standard from a Tianfu New Area association that could not be read here. Hangzhou mahjong was a promotional event in 2023. Still wanted: the 1985 notice itself, the 1986–1993 primers, and any provincial rules for a game other than Sichuan.

Looked for, not found

• Collection The 麻将起源地陈列馆 at Tianyi Pavilion, Ningbo, exhibits the game's history; no catalogue record bearing on the local games was found.

Known, not yet read

Sources that look worth having but could not be read for this entry. If you can reach one, it can be read and added. Every variant’s list is gathered on Missing sources.

• Scholarship 陈海萍. 《推不倒的长城：中国「麻将热」面面观及其思考》. 长江文艺出版社, 1993 — A contemporary book on the early-1990s mahjong boom in China: the decade the wiki says the regional rules diverged.
  Where: Chinese libraries; cited by Chinese Wikipedia. Tried: Not online.
• Encyclopedia Carlisle, Rodney P., ed. Encyclopedia of Play in Today's Society. SAGE, 2009, p. 133 — Chinese Wikipedia's source for the 1949 ban.
  Where: SAGE Reference; academic libraries. Tried: Not openly available.
• Forum 知乎. 〈【地方麻将】聊聊地方麻将规则〉 (zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/690711853) — A player's survey of how local rule sets arise and multiply.
  Where: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/690711853. Tried: Zhihu returns a login wall to automated reads.
• Law The 1985 Ministry of Public Security document allowing mahjong as entertainment: 公安部. 《公安部关于公安机关不再干预麻将、纸牌的制造、销售问题的通知》, 16 October 1985 — The act that ended the post-1949 restrictions on making and selling tiles, after which the local games now played could be written down. Chen (2024) quotes it in full and The World of Chinese (2019) quotes it in English, but neither is the document itself.
  Where: 《中华人民共和国立法司法行政解释全书》 第3卷 (中国言实出版社, 1997), p. 3130, per Chen; subscription law databases such as pkulaw. Tried: Web searches for the exact title (2026-10-16) returned only Chen's essay. The notice was marked 不登报、不广播 (not to be published or broadcast), so no press copy is expected. The 1997 compilation and pkulaw were not tried.
• Law 公安部、工商行政管理总局、轻工业部、农业部、商业部、外贸部、供销合作总社. 《关于禁止制造、销售赌具问题的联合通知》, 8 May 1980, with its restatement 《公安部关于严禁赌博活动的通知》, 13 December 1983 — These bans on making and selling mahjong tiles stayed in force until 1985, which contradicts the wiki's late-1970s loosening.
  Where: 《工商行政通报》 1980年第7期; the 1983 notice in 《中华人民共和国立法司法行政解释全书》 第3卷 (1997), pp. 2299–2300, per Chen (2024). Tried: A web search for the 1980 title (2026-10-16) found only Chen's essay.
• Historical 国家体委. 《麻将牌座谈会纪要》, Fangshan, Beijing, 19–24 August 1996 — Minutes of the meeting where 20 mahjong experts from 9 provinces and 13 cities first proposed mahjong as a national competitive sport: the point at which people from the local games met, two years before the 1998 unified rules.
  Where: Cited from 李雪颜 (编著), 《麻将博弈》, 中国社会出版社, 2009, pp. 23–24, per Chen (2024). Tried: Known only from Chen's footnote; not searched for separately in this lean pass.
• Rulebook 张普生 (编著). 《怎样打麻将》. 安徽科学技术出版社, 1987 — One of the first mahjong books published in the PRC after 1985, by the organiser of the first sanctioned competition (Anhui, March 1986). With 《麻将牌游戏入门》 (河北科学技术出版社, 1986) and 《麻将入门》 (辽宁科学技术出版社, 1987), it is the kind of 1980s mainland text the Mahjong Wiki says it reasons from.
  Where: Chinese libraries; 215,000 copies printed by May 1990, per Chen (2024). Tried: Not in the Internet Archive's title search for 'ma jiang' (2026-10-16).
• Rulebook 《麻将技巧大全》. 合肥: 黄山书社, 1993 (Internet Archive majiangjiqiaodaq0000unse) — A 326-page mainland manual from the decade in which the wiki says the regional rules diverged; it may record which regional rules were played then.
  Where: https://archive.org/details/majiangjiqiaodaq0000unse (lending library, print-disabled access). Tried: The item is access-restricted, and its text file answered 500 to an anonymous request (2026-10-16). The same collection holds 《麻将读本》 (人民体育出版社, 1997) and 《麻将大全：竞赛规则详解》 (伊犁人民出版社, 1998).
• Official rules 四川天府新区麻将运动协会. 《四川麻将竞赛规则》, T/TFMJ 01—2024, issued 12 July 2024, in force 13 July 2024 — A mainland association's codification of the best-known local game as a group standard, and the only rules text from a provincial-level body for a local game that this pass found.
  Where: National group-standards platform: https://www.ttbz.org.cn/Home/PdfFileStreamGet/c3QsMTEyODcw. Tried: 2026-10-16: two connection resets on our side, then the PDF endpoint answered with the site's own 404 JSON ('资源不存在'). The standard's detail page sits behind the site's slider challenge (WEB 应用防火墙), and the Wayback Machine reset connections. Its details come only from search summaries.
• Official rules 四川天府新区麻将运动协会. 《麻将赛事组织管理规范》, T/TFMJ 3—2024, October 2024 — Search summaries say it lets regional events use group-standard rules (MCR, RCR, SCR) or local rules reformed for competition: a mainland standard for when a local game may be played in sanctioned events.
  Where: https://www.ttbz.org.cn/Home/PdfFileStreamGet/c3QsMTE4NDEx. Tried: 2026-10-16: connection resets on our side, then the site's own 404 JSON ('资源不存在'); the detail page is behind the site's slider challenge.
• Tournament rules 麻将运动竞赛训练中心. Competition regulations (竞赛规程) of the first 中国麻将公开赛, Hangzhou, 24–26 March 2023, for its 四川麻将 and 杭州麻将2V2 events — Tournament rules for two local games, run by a mainland body under MIL. This pass found no other written competition rules for Hangzhou mahjong.
  Where: The centre's WeChat channels and its mini-programme 智力运动考级. Tried: Web searches (2026-10-16) found only news reports; WeChat cannot be searched automatically.

Where it was searched

Every place the search checklist names for this variant’s languages, and what each gave, including nothing. The last full pass was on 2026-10-16.

Names searched: Chinese 地方麻将, 地方麻將, 各地麻将, 中国大陆麻将, 大陸麻將, 地方玩法, 地方麻将规则; English Mainland Mahjong, Mainland Chinese mahjong, Mainland Variants, local Mainland variants, regional Chinese mahjong, Chinese regional mahjong.