Radical category
Unicode assigns each character a primary Kangxi radical for classification and dictionary lookup.
Character components · 部首
Browse all 214 Kangxi radical categories. HanziSpace connects 206 of these categories to 3,684 course characters and documents semantic, phonetic, and classificatory roles where supported by the source data.
In 河 (hé, “river”), 氵 is the semantic component and 可 is the historical phonetic component.
Classification and formation
Unicode assigns each character a primary Kangxi radical for classification and dictionary lookup.
In many characters, a component contributes a broad semantic category such as water, speech, plants, or emotion.
A component may reflect an earlier pronunciation. Its relationship to modern Mandarin varies by character.
Common categories
These radicals classify the largest numbers of characters in the HanziSpace vocabulary set.
Complete reference
All 214 categories, grouped by radical stroke count.
Showing all 214 radical categories.
Data sources and methodology
Classification and stroke counts use Unicode 17.0 kRSUnicode. Structural data comes from Make Me a Hanzi. Formation roles use the pinned Dong Chinese Lexicon for 3,058 characters, with a documented fallback for the remaining records. Dictionary radical assignments are presented separately from semantic roles identified by formation sources.