As of Unicode version 15.1, there are 149,878 characters with code points, covering 161 modern and historical scripts, as well as multiple symbol sets. This article includes the 1,062 characters in the Multilingual European Character Set 2 (MES-2) subset, and some additional related characters.

Character reference overview

HTML and XML provide ways to reference Unicode characters when the characters themselves either cannot or should not be used. A numeric character reference refers to a character by its Universal Character Set/Unicode code point, and a character entity reference refers to a character by a predefined name.

A numeric character reference uses the format

&#nnnn;

or

&#xhhhh;

where nnnn is the code point in decimal form, and hhhh is the code point in hexadecimal form. The x must be lowercase in XML documents. The nnnn or hhhh may be any number of digits and may include leading zeros. The hhhh may mix uppercase and lowercase, though uppercase is the usual style.

In contrast, a character entity reference refers to a character by the name of an entity which has the desired character as its replacement text. The entity must either be predefined (built into the markup language) or explicitly declared in a Document Type Definition (DTD). The format is the same as for any entity reference:

&name;

where name is the case-sensitive name of the entity. The semicolon is required.

Because numbers are harder for humans to remember than names, character entity references are most often written by humans, while numeric character references are most often produced by computer programs.^[1]

Control codes

65 characters, including DEL. All belong to the common script.

Footnotes:

¹ Control-C has typically been used as a "break" or "interrupt" key.

² Control-D has been used to signal "end of file" for text typed in at the terminal on Unix / Linux systems. Windows, DOS, and older minicomputers used Control-Z for this purpose.

³ Control-G is an artifact of the days when teletypes were in use. Important messages could be signalled by striking the bell on the teletype. This was carried over on PCs by generating a buzz sound.

⁴ Line feed is used for "end of line" in text files on Unix / Linux systems.

⁵ Carriage Return (accompanied by line feed) is used as "end of line" character by Windows, DOS, and most minicomputers other than Unix- / Linux-based systems

⁶ Control-O has been the "discard output" key. Output is not sent to the terminal, but discarded, until another Control-o is typed.

⁷ Control-Q has been used to tell a host computer to resume sending output after it was stopped by Control-S.

⁸ Control-S has been used to tell a host computer to postpone sending output to the terminal. Output is suspended until restarted by the Control-Q key.

⁹ Control-U was originally used by Digital Equipment Corporation computers to cancel the current line of typed-in text. Other manufacturers used Control-X for this purpose.

¹⁰ Control-X was commonly used to cancel a line of input typed in at the terminal.

¹¹ Control-Z has commonly been used on minicomputers, Windows and DOS systems to indicate "end of file" either on a terminal or in a text file. Unix / Linux systems use Control-D to indicate end-of-file at a terminal.

Latin script

The Unicode Standard (version 15.1) classifies 1,481 characters as belonging to the Latin script.

Basic Latin

95 characters; the 52 alphabet characters belong to the Latin script. The remaining 43 belong to the common script.
The 33 characters classified as ASCII Punctuation & Symbols are also sometimes referred to as ASCII special characters. Often only these characters (and not other Unicode punctuation) are what is meant when an organization says a password "requires punctuation marks".

Latin-1 Supplement

96 characters; the 62 letters, and two ordinal indicators belong to the Latin script. The remaining 32 belong to the common script.

Latin Extended-A

128 characters; all belong to the Latin script.

Latin Extended-B

208 characters; all belong to the Latin script; 33 in the MES-2 subset.

Latin Extended Additional

256 characters; all belong to the Latin script; 23 in the MES-2 subset.

Additional Latin Extended

• Latin Extended-C (Unicode block)
• Latin Extended-D (Unicode block)
• Latin Extended-E (Unicode block)
• Latin Extended-F (Unicode block)
• Latin Extended-G (Unicode block)

Phonetic scripts

IPA Extensions

96 characters; all belong to the Latin script; three in the MES-2 subset.

Spacing modifier letters

80 characters; 15 in the MES-2 subset.

Phonetic Extensions

• Phonetic Extensions (Unicode block)
• Phonetic Extensions Supplement (Unicode block)

Combining marks

Greek and Coptic

144 code points; 135 assigned characters; 85 in the MES-2 subset.