Ideographic Description Characters

Ideographic Description Characters
Range	U+2FF0..U+2FFF (16 code points)
Plane	BMP
Scripts	Common
Assigned	16 code points
Unused	0 reserved code points
Source standards	GBK (U+2FF0–U+2FFB only)
Unicode version history
3.0 (1999)	12 (+12)
15.1 (2023)	16 (+4)
Unicode documentation
Code chart ∣ Web page
Note:

Ideographic Description Characters is a Unicode block containing graphic characters used for describing CJK ideographs. They are used in Ideographic Description Sequences (IDS) to provide a description of an ideograph, in terms of what other ideographs make it up and how they are laid out relative to one another. An IDS provides the reader with a description of an ideograph that cannot be represented properly, usually because it is not encoded in Unicode; rendering systems are not intended to automatically compose the pieces into a complete ideograph, and the descriptions are not standardized.

U+2FF0 to U+2FFB were introduced from GBK; U+2FFC to U+2FFF were devised later and introduced in Unicode 15.1 (2023).

Block

Ideographic Description Characters[1] Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

A

B

C

D

E

F

U+2FFx

⿰

⿱

⿲

⿳

⿴

⿵

⿶

⿷

⿸

⿹

⿺

⿻

⿼

⿽

⿾

⿿

Notes 1.^ As of Unicode version 17.0

Ideographic Description Sequences

Ideographic Description Sequences are sequences of characters that represent a Chinese character structure as defined by the Unicode standard.

Below are the 16 characters as defined by Unicode in this block:

Unicode	Symbol	Meaning		Example 1	IDS		Example 2	IDS
U+2FF0	⿰	Two components combined left to right		相	⿰木目		𠁢	⿰丨㇍
U+2FF1	⿱	Two components combined above to below		杏	⿱木口		𠚤	⿱𠂊丶
U+2FF2	⿲	Three components combined left to middle and right		衍	⿲彳氵亍		𠂗	⿲丿夕乚
U+2FF3	⿳	Three components combined above to middle and below		京	⿳亠口小		𠋑	⿳亼目口
U+2FF4	⿴	One component fully wrapping another component		回	⿴囗口		𠀬	⿴㐁人
U+2FF5	⿵	One component surround three sides of another component (opening at bottom)		凰	⿵几皇		𧓉	⿵齊虫
U+2FF6	⿶	One component surround three sides of another component (opening at top)		凶	⿶凵㐅		义	⿶乂丶
U+2FF7	⿷	One component surround three sides of another component (opening at right)		匠	⿷匚斤		𧆬	⿷虎九
U+2FF8	⿸	One component surround top and left side of another component		病	⿸疒丙		𤆯	⿸耂火
U+2FF9	⿹	One component surround top and right side of another component		戒	⿹戈廾		𢧌	⿹或壬
U+2FFA	⿺	One component surround bottom and left side of another component		超	⿺走召		𥘶	⿺礼分
U+2FFB	⿻	Two components overlapped		巫	⿻工从		𣏃	⿻木⿻コ一
U+2FFC	⿼	One component surround three sides of another component (opening at left)		㕚	⿼叉丶		𬺹	⿼コ二
U+2FFD	⿽	One component surround bottom and right side of another component		氷	⿽水丶		斗	⿽⺀十
U+2FFE	⿾	Horizontal reflection		卐	⿾卍		𣥄	⿾正
U+2FFF	⿿	Rotation		𠕄	⿿凹		𠄔	⿿予

Two other related ideographic description characters are not encoded in this Unicode block, but of which may be used in ideographic description sequences:

Unicode	Symbol	Block	Meaning		Example 1	IDS		Example 2	IDS
U+303E	〾	CJK Symbols and Punctuation	Variant but not equivalent		㬵 (U+3B35)	〾胶 (U+80F6)		𫜵	〾爫
U+31EF	㇯	CJK Strokes	Subtraction		乒	㇯兵丶		𧰨	㇯豕一

This is the syntax of IDS in EBNF:

IDS := Ideographic | Radical | CJK_Stroke | Private Use | U+FF1F | IDS_UnaryOperator IDS | IDS_BinaryOperator IDS IDS | IDS_TrinaryOperator IDS IDS IDS 
CJK_Stroke := U+31C0 | U+31C1 | ... | U+31E3
IDS_UnaryOperator := U+2FFE | U+2FFF | U+303E
IDS_BinaryOperator := U+2FF0 | U+2FF1 | U+2FF4 | ... | U+2FFD | U+31EF
IDS_TrinaryOperator:= U+2FF2 | U+2FF3

History

The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Ideographic Description Characters block:

See also

• Chinese character description languages
• Specials (Unicode block)