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The Most Popular Mahjong Cities in America

5/28/2026

Nearly 1.8 million Americans played Mahjong on Mahjong 4 Friends in the past year. Their geography points to an unexpected center of gravity for the game: the South.

1.8M U.S. Mahjong players analyzed 1,454 cities 74 cities ranked

When Americans picture a Mahjong stronghold, the image is usually Chinatown, a Brooklyn loft, or a beach club in Boca. Probably not Lafayette, Louisiana.

But a new analysis of nearly 1.8 million active U.S. players on Mahjong 4 Friends, one of the country's largest online Mahjong platforms, finds Lafayette has the highest concentration of Mahjong players per resident of any U.S. city. The Cajun-country town outpaces every other American city, sitting alongside Charleston, Atlanta, Raleigh, Athens, Birmingham, Lexington, Nashville, Little Rock, Jackson, and a long list of other Southern and lower-Midwest cities that together form a clear regional pattern in where Americans play Mahjong, running from the Carolinas through the Gulf and up to the Ohio River.

Mahjong, from American Mah Jongg to Chinese Mahjong, appears to be having a cultural moment more broadly, with Mahjong cafés, podcasts, and social clubs spreading across the country. Active U.S. play has surged: the most recent quarter is more than three times the long-run quarterly average, a 230 percent jump visible across online Mahjong platforms like Mahjong 4 Friends. The geography of that surge doesn't follow the usual map of American cultural trends. The cities driving Mahjong's growth aren't the ones where new American hobbies typically take root.

Headline Findings
#1
National Mahjong Capital
Lafayette, Louisiana leads America on the combined measure of Mahjong player density and growth.
1 in 16
Charlestonians Play Mahjong
No other major American city comes close: Charleston, South Carolina has the highest density of Mahjong players per resident in the U.S.
20/20
Top 20 in the South
America's Mahjong belt runs from the Carolinas through the Gulf to the lower Midwest.
3.3×
Recent Mahjong Surge
Active U.S. Mahjong play in the last quarter has swelled to 3.3× its three-year average.
Geographic Concentration

America's Mahjong belt

The top 25 cities by combined Mahjong popularity per capita and growth momentum. Dot size scales with players per 1,000 residents.

Larger dot = more Mahjong players per 1,000 residents · Hover for details
The Ranking

America's Top 25 Mahjong Cities

Ranked by a composite of Mahjong player density per capita and growth momentum, based on Mahjong 4 Friends data.

# City Players per 1,000 residents Growth
1 LafayetteLA
45.4
 5.06×
2 RaleighNC
36.5
 4.83×
3 SpringfieldMO
27.2
 4.92×
4 CharlestonSC
63.5
 4.68×
5 LexingtonKY
24.7
 4.88×
6 AthensGA
47.0
 4.53×
7 TampaFL
25.2
 4.72×
8 FayettevilleNC
16.6
 4.99×
9 St. LouisMO
14.8
 5.08×
10 Little RockAR
19.9
 4.71×
11 NashvilleTN
20.8
 4.61×
12 MobileAL
16.3
 4.83×
13 Kansas CityMO
16.7
 4.76×
14 ColumbiaSC
28.7
 4.45×
15 LouisvilleKY
12.8
 5.17×
16 HoustonTX
13.5
 4.94×
17 MontgomeryAL
14.2
 4.92×
18 OrlandoFL
53.2
 4.31×
19 BirminghamAL
45.2
 4.34×
20 New OrleansLA
24.6
 4.49×
21 Cape CoralFL
22.5
 4.51×
22 NewarkNJ
18.5
 4.56×
23 ChattanoogaTN
14.9
 4.79×
24 KnoxvilleTN
13.4
 4.81×
25 GainesvilleFL
24.8
 4.38×
The Pattern

A Southern story

The geographic concentration is hard to miss. Across the top 25, 16 cities sit in the South, and another three (Springfield, MO, St. Louis, MO, and Kansas City, MO) sit just over the Mason-Dixon line. Eight states have multiple cities in the top 25.

What isn't on the list matters, too. The country's coastal cultural capitals are largely absent. New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, and Washington, D.C. all have meaningful Mahjong communities in absolute terms, but those communities are small relative to their populations. By per-capita Mahjong play, the cities long stereotyped as America's social and cultural pacesetters trail Lafayette, Charleston, Birmingham, and Athens by a factor of five or more.

That isn't because online Mahjong is fading in those places. It's because Mahjong is growing even faster everywhere else. America's online Mahjong revival is running on a geographic pattern that hasn't gotten much attention. The cities where Mahjong is thriving aren't the ones where new American cultural trends typically incubate. They're cities with established traditions of social table-game play (Lafayette's bourré culture, Charleston's bridge clubs), strong Southern hostessing traditions, and diversifying populations that have brought in players from communities where Mahjong has been part of family life for generations.

City Spotlights

The Cities Driving the Pattern

No. 1 · Lafayette, LouisianaThe National Capital

The Cajun-country city tops the country on the combined measure of Mahjong player density and growth. Known for its Cajun and Creole culture and a long tradition of social card games like bourré, Lafayette appears to have folded online Mahjong into an existing fabric of multi-player table games played in homes and clubs.

No. 4 · Charleston, South CarolinaThe Per-Capita Champion

No major American city has a higher share of Mahjong players per resident than Charleston. At 63.5 players per 1,000, more than 6 percent of all Charlestonians play Mahjong online, a per-capita rate that more than doubles even Atlanta's and is more than seven times that of New York or Los Angeles.

Top 10 Big City · Atlanta, GeorgiaThe Big-City Anchor

Among major U.S. cities with populations above half a million, Atlanta posts the highest Mahjong per-capita rate by a wide margin. Atlanta has roughly twice the Mahjong players per resident of Boston and more than eight times the players per resident of New York.

No. 19 · Birmingham, AlabamaThe Complete Package

Birmingham combines a per-capita rate on par with Lafayette with a player base growing at more than four times its long-run average. It's one of the rare cities to crack the top 20 on every Mahjong measure we examined: popularity, growth, and youth appeal.

No. 2 · Raleigh, North CarolinaThe Triangle's Online Boom

With nearly 18,000 active Mahjong players in the past year and a growth rate of 4.83×, Raleigh is the largest city by raw player count in the top five. The surrounding Research Triangle is one of the densest Mahjong corridors in the country.

Top Growth · Omaha, NebraskaThe Fastest Growing Major City

Omaha posts the steepest growth curve in our data. Its 2,153 active Mahjong players in the most recent quarter is more than the city would have produced in a full year at its earlier historical pace.

Where Mahjong Is Booming

The 10 Fastest Growing Mahjong Cities

Recent-quarter player count divided by the three-year quarterly average. Online Mahjong play nationally is running at 3.3× its three-year average; everything above is outpacing even that surge.

OmahaNE
5.35×
LouisvilleKY
5.17×
St. LouisMO
5.08×
LafayetteLA
5.06×
FayettevilleNC
4.99×
IndianapolisIN
4.96×
HoustonTX
4.94×
MontgomeryAL
4.92×
SpringfieldMO
4.92×
LexingtonKY
4.88×

Become a Part of America's Mahjong Belt

From Charleston to Lafayette, Mahjong communities are growing in places where people still value gathering around the table, sharing traditions, and making game night part of everyday life. If you want to join the surge or just want to sharpen your strategy, you don't have to find a table or group in your community. You can join the hundreds already playing American Mah Jongg and other variations on Mahjong 4 Friends and become part of America's new Mahjong Belt.

Methodology

This analysis is based on Google Analytics 4 data from Mahjong 4 Friends, covering active player sessions over rolling three-month, six-month, one-year, two-year, and three-year windows ending in mid-2026. The U.S. portion of the dataset includes nearly 1.8 million active players over the past year, spanning more than 1,400 American cities.

Population Data

Population data was sourced from the GeoNames open geographic database, using each city's most populous administrative entity for disambiguation where city names appear in multiple states.

Filters Applied

The ranked universe was limited to U.S. cities with populations of at least 100,000, at least 2,500 active players in the past year, and a clear independent media-market identity. Satellite suburbs of larger metros were excluded to focus the analysis on cities with their own distinct civic identity. This produced a final ranking universe of 74 American cities.

Popularity per 1,000 Residents

Calculated as one-year active players divided by city population, multiplied by 1,000.

Growth Index

Calculated as the number of active players in the most recent three months divided by the average three-month total over the prior three years.

Final Ranking

The average of each city's rank on the two measures above, equally weighted.

About Mahjong 4 Friends

Mahjong 4 Friends is one of the largest online Mahjong communities in the United States. The platform supports American (NMJL) and Chinese Mahjong variants and allows players to compete with friends or join open public games. Learn more at mahjong4friends.com.