What 陕 means
陕 began as a place name and later named a region.
Early in the Zhou dynasty, the Duke of Zhou (周公) governed east of 陕原 and the Duke of Shao (召公) west. By 997, 陕西 was an administrative name; in 1286, Shaanxi became an independent province-level unit.
Neutral geographic shorthand.
In Shaanxi names, 陕 means Shaanxi, not “narrow.”
What it means when someone sends it to you
2 readings陕西
Shaanxi; 陕 begins its Chinese name.
陕北 or 陕南
Northern or southern Shaanxi; 陕 marks the region.
Don't confuse it with
1Questions people ask
1Why does 陕 show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
How to type 陕
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 9655, then Alt+X to get 陕.
Windows
Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win + .).
macOS
Control+Command+SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “cjk unified ideograph-9655”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 9655, then Enter or Space.
HTML
陕CSS
\9655Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
陕
HTML hex
陕
CSS content
content: "\9655";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E9%99%95
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
3
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.