Front Matter

漢字 Hanzi

From oracle bones to digital — the world's oldest continuously used writing system, unbroken for 3,200 years.

Era

Ancient–present (1200 BC — )

Region

East Asia

System

Logographic

Direction

Variable (TTB / LTR)

Characters

~50,000

Users

1.5 billion+

The world's oldest continuously used writing system. ~50,000 characters exist, though 3,000–4,000 suffice for daily use. Originating in oracle bone script around 1200 BC, it has continued for 3,200+ years. Though logographic, Chinese characters encode sound as well as meaning — a hybrid system that formed the common cultural foundation of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Now split into Simplified (China) and Traditional (Taiwan/Hong Kong) forms, used by ~1.4 billion people.

3,200 Years of Hanzi

From oracle bones to Unicode

BC 1200

Oracle bone script

Shang royal divination records — the earliest form.

BC 1000

Bronze script

Zhou dynasty bronze vessel inscriptions.

BC 221

Small seal script

Qin Shi Huang standardizes the script across all China.

BC 200

Clerical script

Han clerical script — direct ancestor of modern forms.

AD 100

Regular · running · cursive

The three classical East Asian script styles take shape.

1956

Simplified characters

PRC publishes Simplified Chinese. Taiwan keeps Traditional.

1993

CJK Unicode

CJK Unified Ideographs encoded — pan-East-Asian character set.

Primary Artifact

Oracle bone scapula

c. 1200 BC · Shang dynasty · divination record

Full

Top

Bottom

— An ox scapula recording the result of a Shang royal divination · c. 1200 BC

Periodc. BC 1200

MaterialOx scapula

PurposeDivination

Site殷墟 (Anyang)

Oracle bone script — the oldest known form of Chinese characters. Shang kings divined by heating turtle plastrons or ox scapulae and reading the cracks, then carved the records. In 1899, scholars discovered characters on "dragon bones" sold as traditional medicine, confirming the origin of Chinese writing.

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