Traditional Chinese characters

Traditional Chinese characters are one type of standard Chinese character sets of the contemporary written Chinese. The traditional characters had taken shapes since the clerical change and mostly remained in the same structure they took at the introduction of the regular script in the 2nd century.[1] Over the following centuries, traditional characters were regarded as the standard form of printed Chinese characters or literary Chinese throughout the Sinosphere until the middle of the 20th century,[1][3][4] before different script reforms initiated by countries using Chinese characters as a writing system.[3][5][6]

Traditional Chinese
Script type	Logographic
Time period	Since 2nd century AD[1]
Direction	Left-to-right (modern usage) Top-to-bottom, columns right to left (traditional style)
Official script	Republic of China (Taiwan)  Hong Kong  Macau  United Nations (documents in traditional Chinese characters 1945–1971)
Languages	Chinese, Korean (Hanja), Japanese (Kyūjitai)
Related scripts
Parent systems	Oracle bone script Seal script Clerical script Traditional Chinese
Child systems	Simplified Chinese Kanji (Kyūjitai and Shinjitai) Hanja Chữ Hán Chữ Nôm Zhuyin Khitan large script Khitan small script Sawndip
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Hant (502), ​Han (Traditional variant)
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Chinese characters
Scripts Precursors Oracle-bone Bronze Seal (bird-worm large small) Clerical Regular Semi-cursive Cursive Flat brush Simplified characters Type styles Imitation Song Ming Sans-serif
Properties Strokes (order) Radicals Classification
Variants Character-form standards Kangxi Dictionary Jiu zixing/Inherited form Xin zixing General Standard Chinese Characters (PRC) Graphemes of commonly-used Chinese characters (Hong Kong) Standard typefaces for Chinese characters (ROC Taiwan) Grapheme-usage standards Graphemic variants General Standard Characters (PRC) Jōyō kanji (Japan) Other standards Standardized Forms of Words with Variant Forms (PRC) Previous standards Commonly-used Characters (PRC) Tōyō kanji (Japan)
Reforms Chinese Clerical reforms Traditional characters Simplified characters (first round second round) Debate Japanese Old (Kyūjitai) New (Shinjitai) Ryakuji Sino-Japanese Differences between Shinjitai and Simplified characters Korean Yakja Singaporean Table of Simplified Characters
Homographs Literary and colloquial readings
Use in particular scripts Written Chinese Zetian characters Slavonic transcription Hokkien Nüshu Kanji (Kokuji) Kana (Man'yōgana) Idu Hanja (Gukja) Chữ Nôm Sawndip
v t e

Traditional Chinese characters remain in common use in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, as well as in most overseas Chinese communities outside Southeast Asia;[7] in addition, Hanja in Korean language remains virtually identical to traditional characters, which is still used to a certain extent in South Korea, despite differing standards used among these countries over some variant Chinese characters. In Taiwan, the standardization of traditional characters is stipulated through the promulgation of the Standard Form of National Characters, which is regulated by Taiwan's Ministry of Education. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in Mainland China, Malaysia, and Singapore in official publications.

The debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities.[8][9] Currently, many Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both character sets.[2]