History of Unicode Release and Publication Dates

For ease of reference, this page collects together information about the dates for various releases of the Unicode Standard, as well as details regarding publication dates for the books and Unicode Technical Reports associated with Unicode releases.

Dates for Each Release of the Unicode Standard

The formal release dates for each version of the Unicode Standard, as documented in Enumerated Versions, have come to be associated with the date when the Unicode Character Database data files for a version have been completed and announced. However, note that for the very earliest versions of the Unicode Standard, there were no data files; the release of data files started with Version 2.0.0.

For major and minor versions, and particularly for the major versions involving a book publication, the release dates may differ from the publication date for the associated documentation.

Unicode Release Dates

Version	Year	Month (Day)
5.1.0	2008	April  4
5.0.0	2006	July 14
4.1.0	2005	March 31
4.0.1	2004	March
4.0.0	2003	April
3.2.0	2002	March
3.1.1	2001	August
3.1.0	2001	March
3.0.1	2000	August
3.0.0	1999	September
2.1.9	1999	April
2.1.8	1998	December
2.1.5	1998	August
2.1.2	1998	May
2.0.0	1996	July
1.1.5	1995	July
1.1.0	1993	June
1.0.1	1992	June
1.0.0	1991	October

Version 1.1.5 was not a release formally approved by the Unicode Technical Committee. However, the very first version of UnicodeData.txt became available in July, 1995. It contained data for the repertoire of Unicode 1.1, and that data file has come to be known as Unicode Version 1.1.5.

Publication Dates for the Unicode Standard Books

Title	Publication Year	First Printing Date
The Unicode Standard, Version 5.0	2007	October, 2006
The Unicode Standard, Version 4.0	2003	August
The Unicode Standard, Version 3.0	2000	January
The Unicode Standard, Version 2.0	1996	July
The Unicode Standard, Version 1.0, Volume 2	1992	June
The Unicode Standard, Version 1.0, Volume 1	1991	October

Note that for various reasons involving the publication production schedule, the publication dates for Version 3.0 and Version 5.0 are the subsequent year after the date associated with the data release for that version.

Version 2.0 had multiple print runs. The third printing was dated July, 1998.

Publication Dates of UTRs for Minor Releases

Title	Report Number	Date
The Unicode Standard, Version 3.2	UAX #28	March 27, 2002
The Unicode Standard, Version 3.1	UAX #27	May 16, 2001
The Unicode Standard, Version 1.1	UTR #4	1993

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