What 국 means
The surrounding word determines the reading.
Hangul, the Korean alphabet, arranges consonants and vowels into syllable blocks. 국 records a sound, not a picture of either meaning.
Hangul was designed to make Korean writing more accessible. Its creation is documented in 1443; Hunminjeongeum, a guide to the script, explains it in 1446. These dates mark Hangul's history, not this syllable's origin.
Combination ideas
2Korea; 국 supplies the country or state element.
A thick Korean soup; 국 is the soup element.
Questions people ask
1Why does 국 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 국
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType AD6D, then Alt+X to get 국.
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 “hangul syllable gug”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType ad6d, then Enter or Space.
HTML
국CSS
\AD6DHow to type 국
On a common Korean 2-set keyboard, enter r-n-r; it combines ㄱ + ㅜ + ㄱ into 국.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
국
HTML hex
국
CSS content
content: "\AD6D";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%EA%B5%AD
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.