What ㌀ means
It stands for アパート, Japanese for “apartment.”
㌀ is a Japanese squared word: it compresses アパート into one square typographic cell. Such compact forms saved space in Japanese typesetting and were carried into Unicode for compatibility with older Japanese text standards.
Fonts may arrange its contents differently in horizontal and vertical Japanese text. NFKC and NFKD are text-normalization forms that standardize equivalent characters; they convert ㌀ to ordinary アパート.
A specialist Japanese typography form; ordinary prose uses アパート.
Don't confuse it with
4Questions people ask
1Does normalization turn ㌀ into アパート?
Yes. NFKC and NFKD replace this square compatibility form with ordinary アパート, removing the one-cell layout.
How to type ㌀
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 3300, then Alt+X to get ㌀.
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 “square apaato”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 3300, then Enter or Space.
HTML
㌀CSS
\3300Unicode input for ㌀
A character map or Unicode input tool can enter ㌀; entering アパート gives the ordinary four-character spelling.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
㌀
HTML hex
㌀
CSS content
content: "\3300";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E3%8C%80
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.