CJK Unified Ideographs

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The Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK) scripts share a common background, collectively known as CJK characters. During the process called Han unification, the common (shared) characters were identified and named CJK Unified Ideographs. As of Unicode 15.1, Unicode defines a total of 97,680 characters.[1]

CJKV character in traditional and simplified Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese forms

The term ideographs is a misnomer, as the Chinese script is not ideographic but rather logographic.

Until the early 20th century, Vietnam also used Chinese characters (Chữ Nôm), so sometimes the abbreviation CJKV is used.

Sources

The Ideographic Research Group (IRG) is responsible for developing extensions to the encoded repertoires of CJK unified ideographs. IRG processes proposals for new CJK unified ideographs submitted by its member bodies, and after undergoing several rounds of expert review, IRG submits a consolidated set of characters to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 Working Group 2 (WG2) and the Unicode Technical Committee (UTC) for consideration for inclusion in the ISO/IEC 10646 and Unicode standards. The following IRG member bodies have been involved in the standardization of CJK unified ideographs:

The ideographs submitted by the UTC and the United Kingdom are not specific to any particular region, but are characters which have been suggested for encoding by individual experts. The ideographs submitted by SAT are required for the SAT Daizōkyō text database.

The table below gives the numbers of encoded CJK unified ideographs for each IRG source for Unicode 15.1.[2] The total number of characters (224,891) far exceeds the number of encoded CJK unified ideographs (97,680) as many characters have more than one source.

CJK unified ideographs by source
Country or regionCharacter count
 China66,563
 Hong Kong17,665
 Macau348
 Taiwan (TCA)59,137
 Japan16,148
 South Korea20,740
 North Korea24,025
 Vietnam13,284
 United Kingdom2,503
SAT3,455
UTC1,023
Total224,891

UTC sources

The majority of characters submitted by the UTC to the IRG are derived from Unicode Technical Committee (UTC) documents.[3] Other sources include:

CJK Unified Ideographs blocks

CJK Unified Ideographs

The basic block named CJK Unified Ideographs (4E00–9FFF) contains 20,992 basic Chinese characters in the range U+4E00 through U+9FFF. The block not only includes characters used in the Chinese writing system but also kanji used in the Japanese writing system, hanja in Korea, and chữ Nôm characters in Vietnamese. Many characters in this block are used in all three writing systems, while others are in only one or two of the three. The first 20,902 characters in the block are arranged according to the Kangxi Dictionary ordering of radicals. In this system the characters written with the fewest strokes are listed first. The remaining characters were added later, and so are not in radical order.

The block is the result of Han unification,[4] which was somewhat controversial within East Asia.[5] Since Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters were coded in the same location, the appearance of a selected glyph could depend on the particular font being used. However, the source separation rule states that characters encoded separately in an earlier character set would remain separate in the new Unicode encoding.[6]

Using variation selectors, it is possible to specify certain variant CJK ideograms within Unicode.[7] The Adobe-Japan1 character set, which has 14,684 ideographic variation sequences,[8] is an extreme example of the use of variation selectors.[9]

Charts

4E00-62FF,6300-77FF,7800-8CFF,8D00-9FFF.

Sources

Note: Most characters appear in multiple sources, so the sum of individual character counts (102,795) is far greater than the number of encoded characters (20,992).[10]

Country or regionCodeSource[11]Character countTotal
 ChinaG0GB 2312-806,76320,933
G1GB 12345-902,202
G3GB 7589-87 traditional form4,834
G5GB 7590-87 traditional form2,841
G7Modern Chinese general character chart (Simplified Chinese: 现代汉语通用字表)42
G8GB 8565-88199
GCENational Academy for Educational Research4
GDMPlace name characters from the Public Order Administration, Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China2
GEGB16500-953,772
GFCModern Chinese Standard Dictionary (现代汉语规范词典第二版)2
GGFZTongyong Guifan Hanzi Zidian (通用规范汉字字典)1
GHGB/T 15564-199559
GHZHanyu Da Zidian (漢語大字典)1
GHZRHanyu Da Zidian 2nd ed. (汉语大字典, 第二版)1
GKGB 12052-8989
GKJTerms in Sciences and Technologies (科技用字) approved by the China National Committee for Terms in Sciences and Technologies (CNCTST)16
GKXKangxi Dictionary (康熙字典)3
GLKLongkan Shoujian (龍龕手鑑)1
GTStandard Telegraph Codebook (revised), 19838
GUNo source (the original source reference may have been moved)92
GZFYHanyu Fangyan Dacidian (汉语方言大词典)1
 Hong KongHHong Kong Supplementary Character Set, 20082,29215,376
HB0Computer Chinese Glyph and Character Code Mapping Table, Technical Report C-26
(電腦用中文字型與字碼對照表, 技術通報C-26)
9
HB1Big-5, Level 15,401
HB2Big-5, Level 27,650
HDHong Kong Supplementary Character Set, 201624
 JapanJ0JIS X 0208-19906,35612,565
J1JIS X 0212-19903,058
J13JIS X 0213:2004 level-3 characters replacing J1 characters1,037
J13AJIS X 0213:2004 level-3 character addendum from JIS X 0213:2000 level-3 replacing J1 character2
J14JIS X 0213:2004 level-4 characters replacing J1 characters1,704
J3JIS X 0213:2004 Level 395
J3AJIS X 0213:2004 Level 3 addendum7
J4JIS X 0213:2004 Level 4301
JARIBARIB STD-B243
JMJCharacter Information Development and Maintenance Project for e-Government "MojiJoho-Kiban Project" (文字情報基盤整備事業)2
 South KoreaK0KS C 5601-87 (now KS X 1001:2004)4,62015,442
K1KS C 5657-91 (now KS X 1002:2001)2,855
K2PKS C 5700-1:19947,911
K3PKS C 5700-2:19941
K4PKS 5700-3:19984
K6KS X 1027-5:201449
KCKorean History On-Line (한국 역사 정보 통합 시스템)1
KUNo source (the original source reference may have been moved)1
 North KoreaKP0KPS 9566-974,65215,010
KP1KPS 10721-200010,358
 MacauMAHKSCS-200829200
MB1Big Five10
MB2Big Five7
MCMCSCS Reference3
MDMCSCS horizontal extensions127
MDHMCSCS horizontal extensions24
 TaiwanT1CNS 11643-1992 plane 15,41318,384
T2CNS 11643-1992 plane 27,651
T3CNS 11643-1992 plane 34,144
T4CNS 11643-1992 plane 4894
T5CNS 11643-1992 plane 564
T6CNS 11643-1992 plane 631
T7CNS 11643-1992 plane 716
TBCNS 11643-2007 plane 112
TCCNS 11643-2007 plane 122
TECNS 11643-2007 plane 149
TFCNS 11643-2007 plane 15158
 VietnamV0TCVN 5773:19935994,808
V1TCVN 6056:19953,305
V2VHN 01-1998759
V3VHN 02-199891
V4Kho Chữ Hán Nôm Mã Hoá (Hán Nôm Coded Character Repertoire)19
VNVietnamese horizontal extensions35
n/aUTCUTC sources7777

In Unicode 4.1, 14 HKSCS-2004 characters and 8 GB 18030 characters were assigned to between U+9FA6 and U+9FBB code points. Since then, other additions were added to this block for various reasons, all summarized in the version history section below.

CJK Unified Ideographs Extension A

The block named CJK Unified Ideographs Extension A (3400–4DBF) contains 6,592 additional characters in the range U+3400 through U+4DBF.

Charts

3400-4DBF.

Sources

Note: Most characters appear in more than one source, so the sum of individual character counts (18,835) is far greater than the number of encoded characters (6,592).[10]

Country or regionCodeSource[11]Character countTotal
 ChinaG3GB 7589-87 traditional form2,3916,197
G5GB 7590-87 traditional form1,226
G7Modern Chinese general character chart120
GGFZTongyong Guifan Hanzi Zidian (通用规范汉字字典)2
GHZHanyu Da Zidian (漢語大字典)340
GKJTerms in Sciences and Technologies (科技用字) approved by the China National Committee for Terms in Sciences and Technologies (CNCTST)3
GKXKangxi Dictionary (康熙字典)1,889
GSSingapore Chinese characters[note 1]226
 Hong KongHHong Kong Supplementary Character Set, 2008572572
 JapanJ3JIS X 0213:2004 Level 32738
J4JIS X 0213:2004 Level 478
JAJapanese IT Vendors Contemporary Ideographs, 1993574
JA3JIS X 0213:2004 level-3 characters replacing JA characters17
JA4JIS X 0213:2004 level-4 characters replacing JA characters67
 South KoreaK3PKS C 5700-2:19941,8331,866
K4PKS 5700-3:19982
K6KS X 1027-5:201428
KCKorean History On-Line (한국 역사 정보 통합 시스템)3
 North KoreaKP0KPS 9566-9713,191
KP1KPS 10721-20003,190
 MacauMAHKSCS-2008412
MDMCSCS horizontal extensions8
 TaiwanT3CNS 11643-1992 plane 32,1795,916
T4CNS 11643-1992 plane 42,919
T5CNS 11643-1992 plane 5399
T6CNS 11643-1992 plane 6200
T7CNS 11643-1992 plane 7133
TECNS 11643-2007 plane 141
TFCNS 11643-2007 plane 1585
 United KingdomUKIRG N2107R233
 VietnamV0TCVN 5773:1993140319
V2VHN 01-1998149
V3VHN 02-199819
V4Kho Chữ Hán Nôm Mã Hoá (Hán Nôm Coded Character Repertoire)5
VNVietnamese horizontal extensions6
n/aUTCUTC sources2121

CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B

The block named CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B (20000–2A6DF) contains 42,720 characters in the range U+20000 through U+2A6DF. These include most of the characters used in the Kangxi Dictionary that are not in the basic CJK Unified Ideographs block, as well as many Hán-Nôm characters that were formerly used to write Vietnamese.

Charts

20000-215FF,21600-230FF,23100-245FF,24600-260FF,26100-275FF,27600-290FF,29100-2A6DF.

Sources

Note: Many characters appear in more than one source, so the sum of individual character counts (74,208) is far greater than the number of encoded characters (42,720).[10]

Country or regionCodeSource[11]Character countTotal
 ChinaG3GB 7589-87 traditional form130,550
G4KSiku Quanshu (四庫全書)477
GBKEncyclopedia of China (中國大百科全書)86
GCHCihai (辞海)247
GCYCiyuan (辭源)66
GFZFounder Press System65
GGFZTongyong Guifan Hanzi Zidian (通用规范汉字字典)5
GHCHanyu Da Cidian (漢語大詞典)553
GHFHanwen fodian yinan suzi huishi yu yanjiu (漢文佛典疑難俗字彙釋與研究)1
GHZHanyu Da Zidian (漢語大字典)10,508
GHZRHanyu Da Zidian 2nd ed. (汉语大字典, 第二版)1
GKJTerms in Sciences and Technologies (科技用字) approved by the China National Committee for Terms in Sciences and Technologies (CNCTST)17
GKXKangxi Dictionary (康熙字典)18,471
GUNo source (the original source reference may have been moved)52
 Hong KongHHong Kong Supplementary Character Set, 20081,7031,703
 JapanJ3JIS X 0213:2004 Level 325303
J3AJIS X 0213:2004 Level 3 addendum1
J4JIS X 0213:2004 Level 4277
 South KoreaK1KS C 5657-91 (now KS X 1002:2001)1261
K4PKS 5700-3:1998166
K6KS X 1027-5:201480
KCKorean History On-Line (한국 역사 정보 통합 시스템)14
 North KoreaKP1KPS 10721-20005,7655,765
 MacauMAHKSCS-2008938
MCMCSCS Reference2
MDMCSCS horizontal extensions27
 TaiwanT3CNS 11643-1992 plane 32530,193
T4CNS 11643-1992 plane 43,408
T5CNS 11643-1992 plane 58,111
T6CNS 11643-1992 plane 65,934
T7CNS 11643-1992 plane 76,299
TACNS 11643-2007 plane 108
TBCNS 11643-2007 plane 116
TCCNS 11643-2007 plane 121
TFCNS 11643-2007 plane 156,401
 United KingdomUKIRG N2107R21212
 VietnamV0TCVN 5773:19931,5705,299
V1TCVN 6056:19951
V2VHN 01-19982,286
V3VHN 02-1998422
V4Kho Chữ Hán Nôm Mã Hoá (Hán Nôm Coded Character Repertoire)33
VNVietnamese horizontal extensions987
n/aSATSAT Daizōkyō Text Database184
UTCUTC sources83

CJK Unified Ideographs Extension C

The block named CJK Unified Ideographs Extension C (2A700–2B73F) contains 4,154 characters in the range U+2A700 through U+2B739. It was initially added in Unicode 5.2 (2009).

Charts

2A700-2B73F.

Sources

Note: Some characters appear in more than one source, so the sum of individual character counts (4,570) is greater than the number of encoded characters (4,154).[10]

Country or regionCodeSource[11]Character countTotal
 ChinaGBKEncyclopedia of China (中國大百科全書)741,130
GCHCihai (辞海)264
GCYCiyuan (辭源)1
GCYYChinese Academy of Surveying and Mapping ideographs55
GDMPlace name characters from the Public Order Administration, Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China1
GFZFounder Press System1
GGFZTongyong Guifan Hanzi Zidian (通用规范汉字字典)2
GGHGudai Hanyu Cidian (古代汉语词典)51
GHCHanyu Da Cidian (漢語大詞典)14
GHZHanyu Da Zidian (漢語大字典)1
GHZRHanyu Da Zidian 2nd ed. (汉语大字典, 第二版)1
GJZCommercial Press ideographs61
GKJTerms in Sciences and Technologies (科技用字) approved by the China National Committee for Terms in Sciences and Technologies (CNCTST)6
GKXKangxi Dictionary (康熙字典)6
GXCXiandai Hanyu Cidian (现代汉语词典)25
GZFYHanyu Fangyan Dacidian (汉语方言大词典)202
GZJWYin Zhou Jinwen Jicheng Yinde (殷周金文集成引得)365
 Hong KongHHong Kong Supplementary Character Set, 200811
 JapanJKJapanese Kokuji Collection367367
 South KoreaK5Korean IRG Hanja Character Set404406
K6KS X 1027-5:20141
KCKorean History On-Line (한국 역사 정보 통합 시스템)1
 North KoreaKP1KPS 10721-200088
 MacauMCMCSCS Reference1721
MDMCSCS horizontal extensions4
 TaiwanT5CNS 11643-1992 plane 511,752
TCCNS 11643-2007 plane 12634
TDCNS 11643-2007 plane 13766
TECNS 11643-2007 plane 14350
TUNo source (the original source reference may have been moved)1
 United KingdomUKIRG N2107R211
 VietnamV0TCVN 5773:19934795
V1TCVN 6056:19952
V2VHN 01-19981
V4Kho Chữ Hán Nôm Mã Hoá (Hán Nôm Coded Character Repertoire)782
VNVietnamese horizontal extensions6
n/aUTCUTC sources8989

CJK Unified Ideographs Extension D

The block named CJK Unified Ideographs Extension D (2B740–2B81F) contains 222 characters in the range U+2B740 through U+2B81D that were added in Unicode 6.0 (2010).

Charts

2B740–2B81F.

Sources

Note: Some characters appear in more than one source, so the sum of individual character counts (229) is greater than the number of encoded characters (222).[10]

Country or regionCodeSource[11]Character countTotal
 ChinaGCHCihai (辞海)178
GIDCID System of the Ministry of Public Security of China32
GKJTerms in Sciences and Technologies (科技用字) approved by the China National Committee for Terms in Sciences and Technologies (CNCTST)2
GXCXiandai Hanyu Cidian (现代汉语词典)4
GZHZhonghua Zihai (中华字海)39
 JapanJHHanyo-Denshi Program (汎用電子情報交換環境整備プログラム)107107
 TaiwanTBCNS 11643-2007 plane 112424
n/aUTCUTC sources2020

CJK Unified Ideographs Extension E

The block named CJK Unified Ideographs Extension E (2B820–2CEAF) contains 5,762 characters in the range U+2B820 through U+2CEA1 that were added in Unicode 8.0 (2015).

Charts

2B820–2CEAF.

Sources

Note: Some characters appear in more than one source, so the sum of individual character counts (5,830) is greater than the number of encoded characters (5,762).[10]

Country or regionCodeSource[11]Character countTotal
 ChinaGBKEncyclopedia of China (中國大百科全書)152,821
GCHCihai (辞海)112
GCYCiyuan (辭源)3
GCYYChinese Academy of Surveying and Mapping ideographs98
GDZGeology Press ideographs1
GGFZTongyong Guifan Hanzi Zidian (通用规范汉字字典)4
GGHGudai Hanyu Cidian (古代汉语词典)175
GHCHanyu Da Cidian (漢語大詞典)7
GIDCID System of the Ministry of Public Security of China36
GJZCommercial Press ideographs147
GKJTerms in Sciences and Technologies (科技用字) approved by the China National Committee for Terms in Sciences and Technologies (CNCTST)2
GKXKangxi Dictionary (康熙字典)22
GRMPeople's Daily ideographs3
GUNo source (the original source reference may have been moved)1
GWZHanyu Da Cidian Press ideographs12
GXCXiandai Hanyu Cidian (现代汉语词典)57
GXHXinhua Zidian (新华字典)4
GZFYHanyu Fangyan Dacidian (汉语方言大词典)712
GZJWYin Zhou Jinwen Jicheng Yinde (殷周金文集成引得)1,410
 Hong KongHDHong Kong Supplementary Character Set, 201611
 JapanJKJapanese Kokuji Collection415415
 South KoreaKCKorean History On-Line (한국 역사 정보 통합 시스템)77
 MacauMCMCSCS Reference4851
MDMCSCS horizontal extensions3
 TaiwanT3CNS 11643-1992 plane 321,261
TBCNS 11643-2007 plane 112
TCCNS 11643-2007 plane 12323
TDCNS 11643-2007 plane 13595
TECNS 11643-2007 plane 14339
 United KingdomUKIRG N2107R222
 VietnamV0TCVN 5773:199361,036
V2VHN 01-19981
V4Kho Chữ Hán Nôm Mã Hoá (Hán Nôm Coded Character Repertoire)1,023
VNVietnamese horizontal extensions6
n/aUTCUTC sources236236

CJK Unified Ideographs Extension F

The block named CJK Unified Ideographs Extension F (2CEB0–2EBEF) contains 7,473 characters in the range U+2CEB0 through 2EBE0 that were added in Unicode 10.0 (2017). It includes more than 1,000 Sawndip characters for Zhuang.

Charts

2CEB0–2EBEF.

Sources

Note: Some characters appear in more than one source, so the sum of individual character counts (7,774) is greater than the number of encoded characters (7,473).[10]

Country or regionCodeSource[11]Character countTotal
 ChinaGCYCiyuan (辭源)1221,309
GFCModern Chinese Standard Dictionary (现代汉语规范词典第二版)27
GIDCID System of the Ministry of Public Security of China1
GKJTerms in Sciences and Technologies (科技用字) approved by the China National Committee for Terms in Sciences and Technologies (CNCTST)5
GLGYJZhuang Liao Songs Research (壮族嘹歌研究)1
GOCDOxford English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary (牛津英汉汉英词典)2
GPGLGZhuang Folk Song Culture Series - Pingguo County Liao Songs (壮族民歌文化丛书•平果嘹歌)70
GXHZXinhua Da Zidian (新华大字典)51
GZAncient Zhuang Character Dictionary (古壮字字典)995
GZJWYin Zhou Jinwen Jicheng Yinde (殷周金文集成引得)33
GZYSChinese Ancient Ethnic Characters Research (中国民族古文字研究)2
 Hong KongHDHong Kong Supplementary Character Set, 201611
 JapanJMJCharacter Information Development and Maintenance Project for e-Government "MojiJoho-Kiban Project" (文字情報基盤整備事業)1,6451,645
 South KoreaKCKorean History On-Line (한국 역사 정보 통합 시스템)1,8101,810
 MacauMCMCSCS Reference2222
 TaiwanT3CNS 11643-1992 plane 313
T6CNS 11643-1992 plane 61
TCCNS 11643-2007 plane 121
 United KingdomUKIRG N2107R222
 VietnamV0TCVN 5773:1993117
V4Kho Chữ Hán Nôm Mã Hoá (Hán Nôm Coded Character Repertoire)8
VNVietnamese horizontal extensions8
n/aSATSAT Daizōkyō Text Database2,8842,965
UTCUTC sources81

CJK Unified Ideographs Extension G

A block named CJK Unified Ideographs Extension G was added as part of Unicode 13.0 to the Tertiary Ideographic Plane in the range U+30000 through U+3134F, containing 4,939 characters.[13]

Charts

30000–3134F.

Sources

Note: Some characters appear in more than one source, so the sum of individual character counts (5,081) is greater than the number of encoded characters (4,939).[10]

Country or regionCodeSource[11]Character countTotal
 ChinaGHZRHanyu Da Zidian 2nd ed. (汉语大字典, 第二版)8782,082
GPGLGZhuang Folk Song Culture Series - Pingguo County Liao Songs (壮族民歌文化丛书•平果嘹歌)13
GZAncient Zhuang Character Dictionary (古壮字字典)1,191
 South KoreaKCKorean History On-Line (한국 역사 정보 통합 시스템)435435
 TaiwanT13CNS 11643 (pending new version) plane 19347353
TBCNS 11643-2007 plane 113
TCCNS 11643-2007 plane 122
TDCNS 11643-2007 plane 131
 United KingdomUKIRG N2107R21,5661,566
 VietnamV4Kho Chữ Hán Nôm Mã Hoá (Hán Nôm Coded Character Repertoire)676
VNVietnamese horizontal extensions70
n/aSATSAT Daizōkyō Text Database329569
UTCUTC sources240

CJK Unified Ideographs Extension H

A block named CJK Unified Ideographs Extension H was added as part of Unicode 15.0 to the Tertiary Ideographic Plane in the range U+31350 through U+323AF, containing 4,192 characters.[14]

Charts

31350–323AF.

Sources

Note: Some characters appear in more than one source, so the sum of individual character counts (4,306) is greater than the number of encoded characters (4,192).[10]

Country or regionCodeSource[11]Character countTotal
 ChinaGDMPlace name characters from the Public Order Administration, Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China128829
GHCHanyu Da Cidian (漢語大詞典)27
GKJTerms in Sciences and Technologies (科技用字) approved by the China National Committee for Terms in Sciences and Technologies (CNCTST)30
GLGYJZhuang Liao Songs Research (壮族嘹歌研究)11
GPGLGZhuang Folk Song Culture Series - Pingguo County Liao Songs (壮族民歌文化丛书•平果嘹歌)14
GUNo source (the original source reference may have been moved)1
GXMCharacters for use in personal names in China from Public Order Administration, Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China216
GZAncient Zhuang Character Dictionary (古壮字字典)285
GZA-1A Vibrant and Unbroken Transmission—Filial Piety and Zhuang Funeral Songs (生生不息的传承•孝与壮族行孝歌之研究)6
GZA-2Annotated Long Zhuang Morality Songs (壮族伦理道德长诗传扬歌译注)38
GZA-3Compendium of Old Zhuang Folksong Texts—Wooing Songs vol. 1—Liao Songs (壮族民歌古籍集成•情歌(一)嘹歌)2
GZA-4Compendium of Old Zhuang Folksong Texts—Wooing Songs vol. 1—Fwen Nganx (壮族民歌古籍集成•情歌(二)欢𭪤)11
GZA-6Zhuang Proverbs from China (中国壮族谚语)59
GZA-7Ancient Remembrance—Zhuang Creation Myth Songs (远古的追忆•壮族创世神话古歌研究)1
 South KoreaKCKorean History On-Line (한국 역사 정보 통합 시스템)512512
 North KoreaKP1KPS 10721-200011
 TaiwanT12CNS 11643 (pending new version) plane 187714
T13CNS 11643 (pending new version) plane 19696
T4CNS 11643-1992 plane 41
T6CNS 11643-1992 plane 61
TBCNS 11643-2007 plane 115
TCCNS 11643-2007 plane 123
TECNS 11643-2007 plane 141
 United KingdomUKIRG N2232R917917
 VietnamV0TCVN 5773:19936931
V4Kho Chữ Hán Nôm Mã Hoá (Hán Nôm Coded Character Repertoire)74
VNVietnamese horizontal extensions851
n/aSATSAT Daizōkyō Text Database241402
UTCUTC sources161

CJK Unified Ideographs Extension I

A block named CJK Unified Ideographs Extension I was added as part of Unicode 15.1 to the Supplementary Ideographic Plane in the range U+2EBF0 through U+2EE5F, containing 622 characters.[15]

Charts

2EBF0–2EE5F.

Sources

Country or regionCodeSource[11]Character countTotal
 ChinaGIDC23ID system of the Ministry of Public Security of China, 2023622622

CJK Compatibility Ideographs

The block named CJK Compatibility Ideographs (F900–FAFF) was created to retain round-trip compatibility with other standards.

However, twelve characters in this block actually have the "Unified Ideograph" property: U+FA0E 﨎, U+FA0F 﨏, U+FA11 﨑, U+FA13 﨓, U+FA14 﨔, U+FA1F 﨟, U+FA21 﨡, U+FA23 﨣, U+FA24 﨤, U+FA27 﨧, U+FA28 﨨, and U+FA29 﨩.[1] None of the other characters in this and other "Compatibility" blocks relate to CJK unification.

While 龜 and 亀 are not considered unifiable, it is not clear why U+FA20 CJK COMPATIBILITY IDEOGRAPH-FA20 is considered equivalent to U+8612 CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-8612.

Charts

F900–FAFF.

Sources

Note: All characters appear in more than one source, so the sum of individual character counts (36) is greater than the number of encoded characters (12).[10]

Country or regionCodeSource[11]Character countTotal
 ChinaGUNo source (the original source reference may have been moved)1212
 JapanJ3JIS X 0213:2004 Level 338
J4JIS X 0213:2004 Level 43
JAJapanese IT Vendors Contemporary Ideographs, 19931
JA3JIS X 0213:2004 level-3 characters replacing JA characters1
 TaiwanTFCNS 11643-2007 plane 1511
 VietnamV0TCVN 5773:199333
n/aUTCUTC sources1212

Known issues

Disunification

U+4039

The character U+4039 (䀹) was a unification of two different characters (one with jiā 夾 phonetic and one with shǎn 㚒 phonetic) until Unicode 5.0. However, they were lexically different characters that should not have been unified; they have different pronunciations and different meanings.

The proposal of disunification of U+4039[16] was accepted for Unicode 5.1, encoding a new character at U+9FC3 (鿃) to represent shǎn.

Other 3 glyphs in Extension B

In CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B, some characters are incorrectly unified with others. These characters include U+2017B (𠅻), U+204AF (𠒯) and U+24CB2 (𤲲). The first two characters contained a wrong unification of Chinese Mainland and Vietnamese source of their glyph, while the last one unifies the Chinese Mainland and Taiwanese ones.[17]

Unifiable variants and exact duplicates

Also in CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B, hundreds of glyph variants were encoded by mistake.[18] Additionally, an ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 report has found that six exact duplicates (where the same character has inadvertently been encoded twice) and two semi-duplicates (where the CJK-B character represents a de facto disunification of two glyph forms unified in the corresponding BMP character) were encoded by mistake:[19]

  • U+34A8 㒨 = U+20457 𠑗 : U+20457 is the same as the China-source glyph for U+34A8, but it is significantly different from the Taiwan-source glyph for U+34A8
  • U+3DB7 㶷 = U+2420E 𤈎 : same glyph shapes
  • U+8641 虁 = U+27144 𧅄 : U+27144 is the same as the Korean-source glyph for U+8641, but it is significantly different from the Chinese Mainland-, Taiwan- and Japan-source glyphs for U+8641
  • U+204F2 𠓲 = U+23515 𣔕 : same glyph shapes, but ordered under different radicals
  • U+249BC 𤦼 = U+249E9 𤧩 : same glyph shapes
  • U+24BD2 𤯒 = U+2A415 𪐕 : same glyph shapes, but ordered under different radicals
  • U+26842 𦡂 = U+26866 𦡦 : same glyph shapes
  • U+FA23 﨣 = U+27EAF 𧺯 : same glyph shapes (U+FA23 﨣 is a unified CJK ideograph, despite its name "CJK COMPATIBILITY IDEOGRAPH-FA23.")

Other CJK ideographs in Unicode, not Unified

Apart from the ten blocks of "Unified Ideographs," Unicode has about a dozen more blocks with not-unified CJK-characters. These are mainly CJK radicals, strokes, punctuation, marks, symbols and compatibility characters. Although some characters have their (decomposable) counterparts in other blocks, the usages can be different. An example of a not-unified CJK-character is U+3007 IDEOGRAPHIC NUMBER ZERO in the CJK Symbols and Punctuation block. Although it is not covered under "CJK Unified Ideographs", it is treated as a CJK-character for all other intents and purposes.[20]

Four blocks of compatibility characters are included for compatibility with legacy text handling systems and older character sets:

They include forms of characters for vertical text layout and rich text characters that Unicode recommends handling through other means. Therefore, their use is discouraged.

Font support

The blocks CJK Unified Ideographs and CJK Unified Ideographs Extension A, being parts of the Basic Multilingual Plane, are supported by the majority of the CJK fonts. However, Japanese and Korean fonts usually have fewer characters (about 13,000 and 8,000, respectively) than Chinese. Extensions B, C, D are supported by additional fonts MingLiU-ExtB, MingLiU_HKSCS-ExtB, PMingLiU-ExtB, SimSun-ExtB included in Microsoft Windows since Vista.[21]

Unicode version history

CJK unified ideographs additions per Unicode version
Unicode versionAdditionPlaneCharacters addedTotal characters
1.0 (1991)CJK Unified IdeographsBasic Multilingual Plane (BMP)20,90220,914
CJK Compatibility IdeographsBMP12
3.0 (1999)CJK Unified Ideographs Extension ABMP6,58227,496
3.1 (2001)CJK Unified Ideographs Extension BSupplementary Ideographic Plane (SIP)42,71170,207
4.1 (2005)CJK Unified Ideographs: Ideographs from HKSCS-2004 and GB 18030-2000 not in ISO 10646BMP2270,229
5.1 (2008)CJK Unified Ideographs: Ideographs from Adobe Japan and disunification of U+4039BMP870,237
5.2 (2009)CJK Unified Ideographs Extension CSIP4,14974,394
8 other characters from ARIB #47, #95, #93 and HKSCSBMP8
6.0 (2010)CJK Unified Ideographs Extension DSIP22274,616
6.1 (2012)1 character corresponding to Adobe-Japan1-6 CID+20156BMP174,617
8.0 (2015)CJK Unified Ideographs Extension ESIP5,76280,388
9 other charactersBMP9
10.0 (2017)CJK Unified Ideographs Extension FSIP7,47387,882
21 other charactersBMP21
11.0 (2018)CJK Unified IdeographsBMP587,887
13.0 (2020)CJK Unified IdeographsBMP1392,856
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension ABMP10
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension BSIP7
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension GTertiary Ideographic Plane (TIP)4,939
14.0 (2021)CJK Unified IdeographsBMP392,865
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension BSIP2
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension CSIP4
15.0 (2022)CJK Unified Ideographs Extension CSIP197,058
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension HTIP4,192
15.1 (2023)CJK Unified Ideographs Extension ISIP62297,680

See also

Notes

References

External links