Mahjong is a tile-based game for two to four players. Though regional variations may exclude certain tiles or add unique ones, it is typically played with a set of 144 tiles based on Chinese characters and symbols. Mahjong was developed in the 19th century in China and has spread throughout the world since the early 20th century. The game and its regional variants are played throughout the Sinosphere in East and Southeast Asia and have also become popular in Western countries. The game has been adapted into a widespread form of online entertainment. Similar to the Western card game rummy, mahjong is a game of skill, strategy, and luck. The game was originally called 麻雀 —meaning 'sparrow'—which is still used in several Chinese languages, mostly in the south, such as Cantonese and Hokkien. It is said that the clacking of tiles during shuffling resembles the chittering of sparrows.
