Japanese postal mark

Several versions of the 〒 mark.
A postbox in Japan
A post van

〒 (郵便マーク Yūbin māku) is the service mark of Japan Post, the postal operator in Japan. It is also used as a Japanese postal code mark. The mark is stylized katakana syllable te (テ), from the word teishin (逓信 communications). The mark dates from the pre-World War II era, when literacy was less complete, the katakana symbol being more easily recognized than a kanji.

To indicate a postal code, the mark is written first, and the postal code is written after. For example, one area of Meguro, Tokyo, would have 〒153-0061 written on any mail, in order to direct mail to that location. This usage has resulted in the inclusion of the mark into the Japanese character sets for computers, and thus eventually their inclusion into Unicode, where it can be found on the Japanese Post Office emoji.[1] In most keyboard-based Japanese input systems, it can be created by typing "yuubin" and then doing a kanji conversion.

Of the versions shown to the right, the one on the far right is the standard mark used in addressing. The circled yūbin mark in the middle is often used on maps to denote post offices.

Unicode

Character 〒 〠 〶 🏣
Unicode name POSTAL MARK POSTAL MARK FACE CIRCLED POSTAL MARK JAPANESE POST OFFICE
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 12306 U+3012 12320 U+3020 12342 U+3036 127971 U+1F3E3
UTF-8 227 128 146 E3 80 92 227 128 160 E3 80 A0 227 128 182 E3 80 B6 240 159 143 163 F0 9F 8F A3
UTF-16 12306 3012 12320 3020 12342 3036 55356 57315 D83C DFE3
Numeric character reference 〒 〒 〠 〠 〶 〶 🏣 🏣

See also

References

  1. ↑ Emojipedia. Japanese Post Office [Retrieved 2014-10-05].

External links

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