.mahjong
Is .mahjong a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
Nobody is chasing .mahjong, as of 7 October 2026. One applicant claimed it and is out. We keep the entry on the record either way.
- Journey To The West
A fun, memorable ending for mahjong clubs and game apps, but a small market where most serious sites will still choose mainstream domains.
mahjong game platforms, mobile-game studios, hobby clubs and community sites, plus teaching/tournament organizers in East Asia and diaspora communities
In Journey To The West's published portfolio of 323 strings submitted in the ICANN 2026 round (flagship tier). Their catalog line: “The clatter of tiles at the heart of gathering.”
The 2012 applications making the most similar bet. Chosen by AI from every string in that round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: a single named game whose title is the community's own word, where the registrants are clubs, tournament circuits, teaching sites and game apps rather than one owner, and the gambling adjacency both supplies willing payers and invites regulatory friction.
Also a specific named tile/card-style game with parlor-and-hall culture plus an online-gaming operator tail, betting that a modest, mostly recreational player base plus real-money operators can carry a namespace built on one game's name.
A single named pastime with organized clubs, federations and a geographically concentrated but passionate following — same bet that a sport's own noun becomes the primary identity for its associations and communities — but it lacks the gambling/operator demand layer that gives mahjong and poker their commercial buyers.
What a .mahjong domain is
.mahjong is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under Culture. Nobody is chasing .mahjong today. The applicants that claimed it are out.
Is the .mahjong domain extension real yet?
.mahjong is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. Nobody has applied for it on the public record; the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round is the process that would decide whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .mahjong domain?
You can’t yet. A .mahjong name can only be registered once the string is delegated (added to the DNS root) and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .mahjong was .poker, delegated on 15 October 2014.
Is .mahjong a real TLD?
Not yet. .mahjong is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because an applicant claimed .mahjong and is no longer in it. We keep the entry, and every entry on this page links to its source.
- Journey To The West · now abandonedICANN
- Journey To The West · first recordedJourney To The West Corporation
“.mahjong · Flagship · “The clatter of tiles at the heart of gathering.””Journey To The West Corporation
- Mahjong has a genuinely large global player base and steady casual-game demand, so the string is instantly meaningful to its niche — that keeps it out of the 1-9 band. But by analogy with other single-game TLDs (.poker, .bingo), which drew modest registration volumes and few primary-identity flagship sites despite far larger commercial online industries, .mahjong is unlikely to see volume registrations or a real aftermarket, which keeps it below the 30-49 band; that comparison is analogy, not measured data. The deepest demand sits in mainland China and East Asia, where new gTLD adoption has historically been constrained by local licensing requirements for websites and by real-money-game regulation — a qualitative dynamic, not a cited figure. The applicant is a portfolio applicant with a large published slate of strings, which typically implies registry-volume economics rather than a dedicated community launch; stated neutrally, that shapes expected adoption toward low-cost hobby registrations. Main market uncertainty: whether mainland-Chinese businesses and players — the core audience — can practically license and operate sites on the TLD, or whether demand stays limited to diaspora and Western casual-game niches. Placed at 24: memorable and niche-credible (upper part of the 10-29 band), but shallow demand, weak brand signal outside the hobby, and a thin resale market.