Roadmaps to Unicode
Plane 3: Tertiary Ideographic Plane
Summary
The following table shows a map of the actual and proposed allocation on Plane 3, the TIP (Tertiary Ideographic Plane). A description of the presentation conventions used in the table is at the bottom of this page. The TIP (plane 3) is used for CJK Unified Ideographs (unified East Asian ideographs) that are not encoded in the BMP or SIP.
The TIP may also be used for encoding scripts belonging to the Old Hanzi Period, namely those of the Shāng Dynasty, the Western Zhōu Dynasty, the Spring and Autumn Period, the Warring Kingdoms, and the Qín Dynasty. The scripts envisaged for encoding are:
- Seal script (小篆 Xiǎo Zhuàn, 大篆 Dàzhuàn = 籀文 Zhòuwén, 古文 Gǔwén)
- Oracle Bone script (甲骨文, Jiǎgǔwén); inscriptions on animal bones and tortoise shells.
- Bronze script (金文, Jīnwén); inscriptions on ironware and bronze.
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The Warring States scripts. There were seven Warring States, namely Qín (秦), Chǔ (楚), Qí (齊), Yàn (燕), Hán (韓), Zhào (趙), and Wèi (魏):
- Bamboo books (簡牘, Jiǎndú)
- Silk writings (帛書, Bóshū)
- Pottery writings (陶文, Táowén)
- Jade and Stone scripts (includes carving on other materials; 玉石文字, Yùshí wénzì)
- Lacquer ware scripts (漆器, Qīqì)
- Ancient seal scripts (璽印, Xǐyìn)
- Currency scripts (錢幣, Qiánbì)
- The Bird and Insect scripts (鳥蟲書, Niǎochóngshū)
Other CJK related characters, including strokes, radicals, and punctuation are encoded on the BMP and SIP.
(Note: The name "Tertiary Ideographic Plane" has been formally assigned to this plane in Amendment 2 to the 5th ed of 10646.)
Status
This document is informative and those parts reflecting proposals are of a provisional nature. Please send corrigenda and other comments to the authors using the online contact form.
Plane 3 is tentatively mapped out to the following zones:
- 00030000-0003134F CJK Unified Ideographs Extension G
- 00031350-000323AF CJK Unified Ideographs Extension H
- 000323B0-0003347F CJK Unified Ideographs Extension J
- 00033480-0003CFFF unassigned
- 0003D000-0003FC3F Seal Script
- 0003FC40-0003FFFD unassigned
Presentation conventions
- Text on Blue indicates a published character collection. Text on Violet indicates a published character collection with predominant right-to-left directionality. For blocks containing assigned graphic or format characters, there is a link to the charts on the Unicode web site.
- (Text between parentheses) indicates scripts which have been formally accepted by UTC or WG2 for processing toward inclusion in the standard. There is generally a link to a mature proposal for the script.
- (Text between parentheses) indicates scripts for which proposals have been formally submitted to the UTC or to WG2. There is generally a link to the formal proposal.
- ¿Text between question marks? indicates scripts for which detailed proposals have not yet been written. There may be a link to an exploratory code table.
- Color highlighting is used to indicate blocks and unassigned ranges which default to right-to-left character behavior.
- Grey shading is used to indicate ranges of control characters and noncharacters.
NOTE: When scripts are actually proposed to the UTC or to WG2, the practice is to "front" them in the zones to which they are tentatively allocated, and to adjust the block size with regard to the allocation proposed.
The size and location of the unallocated script blocks are merely proposals based on the current state of planning. The size and location of a script may change during final allocation of the script.
The Script Encoding Working Group maintains and updates this document as a service to the Unicode Technical Committee and to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2.
Pre-2026 archive of roadmap to this plane here.