U+003C "<" Less-than Sign Unicode Character

U+003C "<" Less-than Sign is a fundamental typographic symbol with roots in Thomas Harriot's 16th century mathematical notation, officially part of the Basic Latin block at code point 60. This character serves as a relational operator in mathematics and programming to compare two values, indicating the left side is smaller than the right, and extends its utility to many contexts such as marking the beginning of HTML tags or enclosing markup. Its distinctive angular shape ensures immediate visual recognition across diverse computer systems and fonts, making it an indispensable component of modern digital text processing.