What's the complete range for Chinese characters in Unicode?

user_104015 0
Viewed 138387

U+4E00..U+9FFF is part of the complete set, but not all

cjk unicode
7 Answers

Unicode version 11.0.0

In Unicode the Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK) scripts share a common background, collectively known as CJK characters.

These ranges often contain non-assigned or reserved code points(such as U+2E9A , U+2EF4 - 2EFF),

Chinese characters

bottom  top     reference (also have a look at wiki page)   block name
4E00    9FEF    http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U4E00.pdf CJK Unified Ideographs
3400    4DBF    http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U3400.pdf CJK Unified Ideographs Extension A
20000   2A6DF   http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U20000.pdf    CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B
2A700   2B73F   http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2A700.pdf    CJK Unified Ideographs Extension C
2B740   2B81F   http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2B740.pdf    CJK Unified Ideographs Extension D
2B820   2CEAF   http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2B820.pdf    CJK Unified Ideographs Extension E
2CEB0   2EBEF   https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2CEB0.pdf   CJK Unified Ideographs Extension F
3007    3007    https://zh.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%80%87    in block CJK Symbols and Punctuation
  • In CJK Unified Ideographs block, I notice many answers use upper bound 9FCC, but U+9FCD(鿍) is indeed a Chinese char. And all characters in this block are Chinese characters (also used in Japanese or Korean etc.).
  • Most of characters in CJK Unified Ideographs Ext (Except Ext F, only 17% in Ext F are Chinese characters), are traditional Chinese characters, which are rarely used in China.
  • 〇 is the Chinese character form of zero and still in use today

Therefore the range is

[0x3007,0x3007],[0x3400,0x4DBF],[0x4E00,0x9FEF],[0x20000,0x2EBFF]

CJK characters but never used in Chinese

They are Common Han used only for compatibility.

It is almost impossible to see them appear in any Chinese books, articles, writings etc.

All characters here have one corresponding glyph-identical Chinese character, such as 金(U+F90A) and 金(U+91D1), they are identical glyphs.

 F900    FAFF   https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UF900.pdf  CJK Compatibility Ideographs
2F800   2FA1F   https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2F800.pdf CJK Compatibility Ideographs Supplement

CJK related symbols

2E80    2EFF    http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2E80.pdf CJK Radicals Supplement
            
2F00    2FDF    http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2F00.pdf Kangxi Radicals 
2FF0    2FFF    https://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2FF0.pdf    Ideographic Description Character
3000    303F    https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U3000.pdf    CJK Symbols and Punctuation
3100    312f    https://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U3100.pdf    Bopomofo
31A0    31BF    https://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U31A0.pdf    Bopomofo Extended
31C0    31EF    http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U31C0.pdf CJK Strokes
3200    32FF    https://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U3200.pdf    Enclosed CJK Letters and Months
3300    33FF    https://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U3300.pdf    CJK Compatibility
FE30    FE4F    https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UFE30.pdf    CJK Compatibility Forms
FF00    FFEF    https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UFF00.pdf    Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms
1F200   1F2FF   https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1F200.pdf   Enclosed Ideographic Supplement
  • some blocks such as Hangul Compatibility Jamo are excluded because of no relation to Chinese.
  • Kangxi Radicals is not Chinese characters, they are graphical components of Chinese characters, used specially to express radicals, .e.g. ⼻(U+2F3B) and 彳(U+5F73), ⻜(U+2EDC) and 飞 (U+98DE)

Other common punctuation appearing in Chinese

This is a wide range, some punctuation may be never used, some punctuations such as ……”“ are used so much in Chinese.

0000    007F    https://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0000.pdf    C0 Controls and Basic Latin 
2000    206F    https://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2000.pdf    General Punctuation
……

There are also many Chinese-related symbols, such as Yijing Hexagram Symbols or Kanbun, but it's off-topic anyway. I write non-chinese-characters in CJK to have a better explanation of what Chinese characters are. And the ranges above already cover almost all the characters which appear in Chinese writing except math and other specialty notation.

Supplementary

CJK Symbols and Punctuation

　、。〃〄々〆〇〈〉《》「」『』【】〒〓〔〕〖〗〘〙〚〛〜〝〞〟〠〡〢〣〤〥〦〧〨〩〪〭〮〯〫〬〰〱〲〳〴〵〶〷〸〹〺〻〼〽 〾 〿

Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms

！＂＃＄％＆＇（）＊＋，－．／０１２３４５６７８９：；＜＝＞？＠ＡＢＣＤＥＦＧＨＩＪＫＬＭＮＯＰＱＲＳＴＵＶＷＸＹＺ［＼］＾＿｀ａｂｃｄｅｆｇｈｉｊｋｌｍｎｏｐｑｒｓｔｕｖｗｘｙｚ｛｜｝～｟｠｡｢｣､･ｦｧｨｩｪｫｬｭｮｯｰｱｲｳｴｵｶｷｸｹｺｻｼｽｾｿﾀﾁﾂﾃﾄﾅﾆﾇﾈﾉﾊﾋﾌﾍﾎﾏﾐﾑﾒﾓﾔﾕﾖﾗﾘﾙﾚﾛﾜﾝﾞﾟﾡﾢﾣﾤﾥﾦﾧﾨﾩﾪﾫﾬﾭﾮﾯﾰﾱﾲﾳﾴﾵﾶﾷﾸﾹﾺﾻﾼﾽﾾￂￃￄￅￆￇￊￋￌￍￎￏￒￓￔￕￖￗￚￛￜ￠￡￢￣￤￥￦￨￩￪￫￬￭￮

Refer

  1. https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B1%89%E5%AD%97 (in chinese language, notice the right side bar)
  2. https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E6%97%A5%E9%9F%93%E7%9B%B8%E5%AE%B9%E8%A1%A8%E6%84%8F%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97 (notice the bottom table)
  3. http://www.unicode.org
user_77215250

Unicode continually evolves, with the current goal to have "A new major version of the standard will be released each year. Starting with Unicode 14.0, each of those releases is targeted for the third quarter of each year."

Without a single community wiki that someone regularly updates, if you want to maintain coverage for corrections and additional extensions, to stay up-to-date be sure to also double check the latest standard, always found at: https://www.unicode.org/versions/latest/ And look for the East Asia chapter (unless that one day gets split as well).

As of this initial writing, the latest is v14, and Ch 18 "presents scripts used in East Asia. This includes major writing systems associated with Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. It also includes several scripts for minority languages". The first table reviews Blocks Containing Han Ideographs where we see they've gone up to Extension G:

Block                                   Range       Comment
-----------------------------------------------------------
CJK Unified Ideographs                  4E00–9FFF   Common
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension A      3400–4DBF   Rare
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B      20000–2A6DF Rare, historic
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension C      2A700–2B73F Rare, historic
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension D      2B740–2B81F Uncommon, some in current use
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension E      2B820–2CEAF Rare, historic
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension F      2CEB0–2EBEF Rare, historic
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension G      30000–3134F Rare, historic
CJK Compatibility Ideographs            F900–FAFF   Duplicates, unifiable variants, corporate characters
CJK Compatibility Ideographs Supplement 2F800–2FA1F Unifiable variants

The second table Small Extensions to CJK Blocks notes additions: "The repertoire in the CJK Unified Ideographs block has subsequently been extended with small sets of unified ideographs or ideographic components needed for interoperability with various standards, or for other reasons, as shown in Table 18-2", some of which "have involved reserved ranges at the end of other CJK blocks."

For additional related blocks such as punctuation and other syllabaries (including for J+K) which should be more stable, check out that unicode chapter further as well as other answers around here, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_unification#Unicode_ranges. https://blog.miniasp.com/post/2019/01/02/Common-Regex-patterns-for-Unicode-characters has some interesting discussion as well even though it was written in 2019.

For fonts that try to render these, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CJK_fonts, but note that coverage information is sparse. You'll have to dig around to see those details, e.g. Adobe/Google's Source Han/Noto fonts don't cover all extensions or compatibility ideographs.

user_9546430

To summarize, it sounds like these are them:

var blocks = [
  [0x3400, 0x4DB5],
  [0x4E00, 0x62FF],
  [0x6300, 0x77FF],
  [0x7800, 0x8CFF],
  [0x8D00, 0x9FCC],
  [0x2e80, 0x2fd5],
  [0x3190, 0x319f],
  [0x3400, 0x4DBF],
  [0x4E00, 0x9FCC],
  [0xF900, 0xFAAD],
  [0x20000, 0x215FF],
  [0x21600, 0x230FF],
  [0x23100, 0x245FF],
  [0x24600, 0x260FF],
  [0x26100, 0x275FF],
  [0x27600, 0x290FF],
  [0x29100, 0x2A6DF],
  [0x2A700, 0x2B734],
  [0x2B740, 0x2B81D]
]
user_1699920
Related