漢

漢
Simplified	汉
Meaning	Han; Chinese
Radical	水 (water)
Strokes	14 (traditional) / 5 (simplified)
Unicode	U+6F22
Pronunciation
Mandarin	hàn
Cantonese	hon3
Japanese	kan; aya, kara, otoko
Korean	han (한)
Vietnamese	hán

漢 (simplified Chinese: 汉; pronounced hàn in Mandarin) is a Chinese character with a long history and many uses. It is one of the most recognizable characters across East Asia.

The character started out as the name of the Han River, a major river in central China. About 2,200 years ago, the famous Han dynasty took its name from this river, and the dynasty became so respected that the Chinese people themselves came to be known as the "Han people" — a name still used today.

The character is so important to Chinese culture that the words for "Chinese characters" in three different countries all use 漢: hànzì (漢字) in China, kanji (漢字) in Japan, and hanja (漢字) in Korea.

The character 漢 has several connected meanings.

The oldest meaning of 漢 is the Han River, which flows through central China. The river starts in the mountains of Shaanxi Province and runs through Hubei Province, where it joins the Yangtze River at the city of Wuhan. The "han" in Wuhan literally comes from this character.

Because the character started as a river name, the left side of 漢 is 氵, the "water radical." A radical is a part of a Chinese character that often gives a clue about meaning. The water radical tells us that the original meaning had to do with water.

In 206 BCE, a leader named Liu Bang became the first emperor of a new Chinese dynasty. Before he became emperor, he ruled a smaller area called Hanzhong (漢中), which was named after the Han River. When Liu Bang became emperor, he kept that name, and his dynasty became known as the Han dynasty (漢朝).

The Han dynasty ruled China from 206 BCE to 220 CE. It is remembered as one of the greatest dynasties in Chinese history. Many things we think of as "classically Chinese" — including paper, the civil service system, and the Silk Road — were developed or expanded during the Han dynasty.

After the Han dynasty became famous, people began calling themselves "Han people" — the Han Chinese — to honor the dynasty's golden age. Today, the Han Chinese are by far the largest ethnic group in China, making up about 92% of the country's people. They are also the largest ethnic group in the entire world.

In classical Chinese poetry, 漢 can also mean the Milky Way — the band of stars stretching across the night sky. Poets called it the "heavenly river" (天漢, tiānhàn), comparing the bright streak of stars to the flowing Han River.

The character is also used as a Chinese surname.

The character 漢 is built from two parts:

• Left side: 氵, the water radical (a shortened form of 水, meaning "water")
• Right side: 𦰩, a phonetic component that gives a clue about how the character should sound

This kind of character — a meaning part plus a sound part — is the most common type in Chinese, called a "phono-semantic compound." About 80–90% of all Chinese characters are built this way.

The character 漢 first appears in bronze inscriptions from the early Western Zhou dynasty, about 3,000 years ago. The right side originally showed a person with their hands tied, possibly crying out. Over the centuries, this part changed and became harder to recognize, until it took the shape we see today.

In mainland China, the government simplified many characters in the 1950s to make reading and writing easier. The simplified form of 漢 is 汉, where the complicated right side has been replaced with the much simpler 又.

• Traditional (used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau): 漢 — 14 strokes
• Simplified (used in mainland China and Singapore): 汉 — only 5 strokes

Japan and Korea both kept the traditional form 漢 in their writing systems, though Japan made a small adjustment in its standard form (called shinjitai, "new character form") that has one stroke fewer than the Chinese traditional version.

Because 漢 is used in many East Asian languages, it has many different pronunciations. The character was borrowed into Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese long ago, and each language adapted the sound in its own way.

Language	Reading	Notes
Mandarin Chinese	hàn	Standard pronunciation in mainland China and Taiwan
Cantonese	hon3	Pronunciation in Hong Kong and Guangdong
Japanese (on'yomi)	kan (かん)	Sound borrowed from Chinese
Japanese (kun'yomi)	aya, kara, otoko	Native Japanese readings
Korean	han (한)	Used in hanja (Chinese characters in Korean)
Vietnamese	hán	Used in old Vietnamese writing called Hán Nôm

漢 appears in many common words across East Asia. Here are some of the most important ones.

The most familiar use of 漢 may be in the names that East Asian languages use for Chinese characters themselves:

Country	Word	Reading	Meaning
China	漢字 / 汉字	hànzì	Chinese characters
Japan	漢字	kanji	Chinese characters used in Japanese
Korea	漢字	hanja (한자)	Chinese characters used in Korean

In all three, 漢 means "Han / Chinese" and 字 means "character."

• 漢語 / 汉语 (hànyǔ) — "Han language," meaning the Chinese language
• 漢族 / 汉族 (hànzú) — the Han ethnic group
• 漢服 / 汉服 (hànfú) — traditional clothing of the Han Chinese
• 男子漢 / 男子汉 (nánzǐhàn) — "real man" or "manly man"
• 武漢 / 武汉 (Wǔhàn) — the city of Wuhan in central China

In Japanese, 漢 has some uses you won't find in Chinese.

The reading otoko (おとこ) is a rare, slangy way of writing the word "man" — usually written 男 — to give it a stronger, more dramatic feel. A Japanese otoko written with 漢 carries the sense of a tough, admirable man.

The reading kara (から) is much older. It originally referred to the Gaya confederacy, an ancient kingdom in southern Korea. Over time, it came to mean Korea in general, then China, and eventually any foreign land. This is why some Japanese words for foreign things use 漢:

• 漢方 (kanpō) — traditional Chinese medicine
• 漢詩 (kanshi) — Chinese-style poetry
• 漢文 (kanbun) — Classical Chinese writing studied by Japanese students

In compound words, 漢 is also used to mean a certain type of man:

• 巨漢 (kyokan) — a giant of a man
• 暴漢 (bōkan) — a thug or hoodlum
• 大食漢 (daishokukan) — a glutton; someone who eats a lot
• 門外漢 (mongaikan) — an outsider; someone who knows nothing about a topic

In Korean, 漢 is read as han (한). It appears in many words borrowed from Chinese, and also — interestingly — in the name of the Han River (한강, Hangang) that flows through Seoul. While this Korean Han River shares the same character as the Chinese one, scholars believe the name actually comes from a native Korean word meaning "great" or "big," and 漢 was just borrowed to write down the sound.

The old Chinese name for Seoul, Hanseong (漢城, "Han City"), also used this character. It is no longer used in Korean today, though it is still sometimes used in Chinese to refer to Seoul.

• Chinese characters
• Han Chinese
• Han dynasty
• Han River (China)
• Han River (Korea)
• Hanja
• Hanzi
• Kanji
• Liu Bang
• Wuhan