The mahjong red dragon emoji is the iconic Red Dragon honor tile—the bold Chinese character 中 (zhōng), meaning "center," not an actual fire-breathing lizard. In-game it’s one of the three Dragons (with Green 發 and White 白), so dropping this in chat reads like "big move energy" or "I’m about to ron." People use it to flex a win, manifest luck before a game night, or add Lunar New Year sparkle to posts and stories. It also pops up in meme-speak as a power-up symbol, a wink to mahjong aunties who sweep the table, or a dramatic "plot twist" tile when you text your big reveal.
On Apple/iOS, it shows a clean, face-on white tile with glossy shading, thin green bands at the top and bottom, and a crisp, punchy red 中 stamped dead center. Rounded corners and high contrast make it super readable—like a tile freshly snapped from the wall. Some platforms tilt it in light 3D, but Apple keeps it flat, tidy, and screenshot-friendly.
Online, it’s used playfully or sarcastically: "tsumo energy only," "summoning good RNG," or "mahjong IRL when?" It can hint at Chinese culture pride, retro parlor aesthetics, or even Yakuza/arcade nostalgia. Expect it next to pong, chi, and ron talk, or dropped as a cheeky reaction when you absolutely nail a risky move at work. No literal dragon here—just a deceptively simple tile that screams main character luck.
Definition
A white tile with red lettering. This emoji is called Mahjong Tile Red Dragon. It looks like a box with a line through it to me.
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Emoji History The emoji code/ image log of changes.
This emoji was part of the proprietary / non-standardized emoji set first introduced by Japanese carriers like Softbank. These emojis became part of the Apple iPhone starting in iOS 2.2 as an unlockable feature on handsets sold in English speaking countries.
In iOS 5 / OSX 10.7, the underlying code that the Apple OS generates for this emoji was changed.
The code generated for this emoji was changed slightly in iOS 7 / OSX 10.9 (a variation selector was added) advising the OS to display character emoji style instead of black and white text when available. We don't mind Apple, thank you! We just love our emojis! [Sources 11438-emoji-var.pdf 13.7 Variation Selectors (unicode.org)]
Emoji General Information
Twitter Emoji Popularity (Rank)
1746 of 2393
Apple/iOS Picture
Google Android Picture
Google Hangouts Picture
Twitter.com Picture
LG Emoji Picture
Samsung Emoji Picture
Phantom Open Emoji Picture
Not created yet
ASCII Conversion
"Short Code" Name
:mahjong:
Keywords
Previous Names:
Mahjong Tile Red Dragon
Unicode Category Information
Unicode Category
Mahjong Tiles
Unicode Range
1F000–1F02F
Unicode Subcategory
Dragon Tiles
Proposed Unicode Information & Notes
Unicode Category
Activities/work/entertainment
Unicode Subcategory
Game Symbols
Names & Annotations
MAHJONG TILE RED DRAGON
Symbol Information
🀄 U+1F004 unified (Unicode 5.1)
Proposal Identifier
e-80B
Character Mapping/Crosswalk Notes
DoCoMo
[麻雀]
KDDI
#362 麻雀 U+E5D1 SJIS-F344 JIS-7925
Softbank
#164 #old135 麻雀 U+E12D SJIS-F76D
Emoji Character Encoding Data
Emoji Code Version
iOS 5 Code
UTF-8 Unicode Character(s)
🀄
UTF-8 Character Count
1
Character(s) In Input
AppleColorEmoji Font (available in OSX/iOS)
🀄
Decimal HTML Entity
🀄
Hexadecimal HTML Entity
🀄
Hex Code Point(s)
1f004
Formal Unicode Notation
U+1F004
Decimal Code Point(s)
126980
UTF-8 Hex (C Syntax)
0xF0 0x9F 0x80 0x84
UTF-8 Hex Bytes
F0 9F 80 84
UTF-8 Octal Bytes
360 237 200 204
UTF-16 Hex (C Syntax)
0xD83C 0xDC04
UTF-16 Hex
d83cdc04
UTF-16 Dec
55356 56324
UTF-32 Hex (C Syntax)
0x0001F004
UTF-32 Hex
01F004
UTF-32 Dec
126980
Python Src
u"\U0001F004"
PHP Src
"\xf0\x9f\x80\x84"
C/C++/Java Src
"\uD83C\uDC04"
Emoji Code Version
iOS 7 - Current
UTF-8 Unicode Character(s)
🀄️
UTF-8 Character Count
2
Character(s) In Input
AppleColorEmoji Font (available in OSX/iOS)
🀄️
Decimal HTML Entity
🀄 ️
Hexadecimal HTML Entity
🀄 ️
Hex Code Point(s)
1f004, fe0f
Formal Unicode Notation
U+1F004, U+FE0F
Decimal Code Point(s)
126980, 65039
UTF-8 Hex (C Syntax)
0xF0 0x9F 0x80 0x84, 0xEF 0xB8 0x8F
UTF-8 Hex Bytes
F0 9F 80 84, EF B8 8F
UTF-8 Octal Bytes
360 237 200 204, 357 270 217
UTF-16 Hex (C Syntax)
0xD83C 0xDC04, 0xFE0F
UTF-16 Hex
d83cdc04, fe0f
UTF-16 Dec
55356 56324, 65039
UTF-32 Hex (C Syntax)
0x0001F004 0x0000FE0F
UTF-32 Hex
01F004, FE0F
UTF-32 Dec
126980, 65039
Python Src
u"\U0001F004\uFE0F"
PHP Src
"\xf0\x9f\x80\x84\xef\xb8\x8f"
C/C++/Java Src
"\uD83C\uDC04\uFE0F"
Emoji Character Encoding Data (equivalent or similiar)
