General Category

Unicode Version 18.0

General Category is a fundamental classification that assigns each character to a single, mutually exclusive group based on its primary semantic role, such as letter, number, punctuation, symbol, or separator. This categorization uses a two-level system: a broad major category (like Letter, Mark, Number, Punctuation, Symbol, Separator, or Other) and a finer subcategory (for example, Uppercase Letter, Decimal Digit, or Open Punctuation). The values are encoded as two-letter codes, such as "Lu" for an uppercase letter or "Nd" for a decimal digit. This property enables software to correctly sort text, identify word boundaries, detect numeric values, implement case conversion, and render text appropriately in contexts like line breaking or bi-directional display, regardless of the specific script or language.

Uppercase Letter
Abbr
Lu
Count
1906

Uppercase Letter is a character category for letters that have lowercase equivalents, like A, B, and C, used to mark capitalization.

Lowercase Letter
Abbr
Ll
Count
2366

Lowercase Letter is a character category for letters that have lowercase forms, like 'a', used in case sensitive text processing.

Titlecase Letter
Abbr
Lt
Count
31

Titlecase Letter is a character category for letters that appear as the first letter of a word in title case, like Dž.

Cased Letter
Abbr
LC
Count
0

Cased Letter is a category for alphabetic characters that have both uppercase and lowercase forms, enabling case mapping and case‑insensitive operations.

Modifier Letter
Abbr
Lm
Count
473

Modifier Letter is a category for small, spacing symbols that alter the pronunciation of a preceding letter, like the glottal stop.

Other Letter
Abbr
Lo
Count
153396

Other Letter is a classification for characters that are letters but lack a specific script, uppercase, lowercase, or titlecase form.

Letter
Abbr
L
Count
0

Letter is a classification for characters representing alphabetic symbols, including letters from all scripts, but not digits or punctuation.

Nonspacing Mark
Abbr
Mn
Count
2090

Nonspacing Mark is a character category for combining marks that occupy no width, attaching to a base character to alter its pronunciation or meaning.

Spacing Mark
Abbr
Mc
Count
477

Spacing Mark is a character category for symbols that combine with a base letter and take up horizontal space, like some vowel signs.

Enclosing Mark
Abbr
Me
Count
13

Enclosing Mark is a character classification for symbols that visually surround or enclose another character, like a circle or box, without combining with it.

Mark
Abbr
M
Count
0

Mark is a character category for combining signs that alter or refine a base letter's meaning or pronunciation.

Decimal Number
Abbr
Nd
Count
770

Decimal Number is a classification for digits with numeric value ten or less, including non decimal scripts, used for mathematical and sorting purposes.

Letter Number
Abbr
Nl
Count
562

Letter Number is a category for numerals composed of letters, like Roman numerals, combining numeric value with alphabetic form.

Other Number
Abbr
No
Count
915

Other Number is a general category for numeric characters that are not digits, like fractions, superscripts, subscripts, and Roman numerals.

Number
Abbr
N
Count
0

Number is a broad classification for characters representing numerals, digits, and numeric values, including fractions and superscripts.

Connector Punctuation
Abbr
Pc
Count
10

Connector Punctuation is a category for characters like underscores that join words or symbols, often used in identifiers and filenames.

Dash Punctuation
Abbr
Pd
Count
27

Dash Punctuation is a character category for hyphens and dashes, used to connect or separate text elements like ranges, compounds, and breaks.

Open Punctuation
Abbr
Ps
Count
80

Open Punctuation is a category for opening brackets, quotes, and similar marks that pair with closing counterparts.

Close Punctuation
Abbr
Pe
Count
78

Close Punctuation is a character category for closing brackets, braces, and similar paired delimiters that terminate a quoted or parenthetical segment.

Initial Punctuation
Abbr
Pi
Count
12

Initial Punctuation is a character class for opening quotes, brackets, and similar marks that appear at the start of a phrase.

Final Punctuation
Abbr
Pf
Count
10

Final Punctuation is a character category for closing or ending punctuation marks like closing quotes, brackets, and parentheses.

Other Punctuation
Abbr
Po
Count
643

Other Punctuation is a category for symbols like commas, periods, and slashes that serve as punctuation but lack dedicated, specialized roles.

Punctuation
Abbr
P
Count
0

Punctuation is a general category value for characters like commas, periods, and brackets, used to structure written text.

Math Symbol
Abbr
Sm
Count
1005

Math Symbol is a General Category value for characters representing mathematical operators, signs, and relations, like plus, equals, and integral.

Currency Symbol
Abbr
Sc
Count
67

Currency Symbol is a character category for monetary signs, including dollar, euro, yen, and similar currency marks.

Modifier Symbol
Abbr
Sk
Count
127

Modifier Symbol is a character category for small written symbols, like accents or diacritics, that alter the meaning of adjacent characters.

Other Symbol
Abbr
So
Count
7561

Other Symbol is used for graphic characters that aren’t letters, numbers, marks, or punctuation, like currency signs, math symbols, or technical icons.

Symbol
Abbr
S
Count
0

Symbol is a character classification for punctuation-like marks, mathematical operators, currency signs, and other non-letter or number glyphs.

Space Separator
Abbr
Zs
Count
17

Space Separator is a category for whitespace characters, like spaces and non-breaking spaces, that create horizontal or vertical gaps in text.

Line Separator
Abbr
Zl
Count
1

Line Separator is a character class for invisible break markers, like the Unicode Zl category, that denote a line boundary.

Paragraph Separator
Abbr
Zp
Count
1

Paragraph Separator is a character category for control characters that explicitly mark the end of a paragraph, such as U+2029.

Separator
Abbr
Z
Count
0

Separator is a category for characters that create space, like spaces, line breaks, and paragraph separators, without being visible glyphs.

Control
Abbr
Cc
Count
65

Control is a category for non-printing characters like tabs, newlines, and null, which control text flow or devices.

Format
Abbr
Cf
Count
170

Format is a character category for invisible, non-spacing control codes used to influence text layout, shaping, or rendering.

Surrogate
Abbr
Cs
Count
0

Surrogate is a General Category value for code points reserved exclusively for use in UTF-16 encoding pairs, not for standalone characters.

Private Use
Abbr
Co
Count
137468

Private Use is a category for characters reserved for personal or application-defined meanings, ensuring no standardized interpretation is enforced.

Unassigned
Abbr
Cn
Count
0

Unassigned is a category for code points not yet assigned to any character, reserved for future use or noncharacters.

Other
Abbr
C
Count
0

Other is a catch-all category for characters with no specific type, including unassigned code points, private use, surrogates, and control codes.