Chess symbols in Unicode

This article contains special characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols.

A screenshot of the GNU Chess program in graphic mode showing the chessboard with Unicode characters. — GNU Chess using Unicode chess characters to display a chess board in the terminal.

Unicode has text representations of chess pieces. These allow to produce the symbols using plain text without the need of a graphics interface. The inclusion of the chess symbols enables the use of figurine algebraic notation, which replaces the letter that stands for a piece by its symbol, e.g. ♘c6 instead of Nc6. It additinonally allows the play of chess games in the text-only enviornments, such as the terminal.

Unicode blocks

Unicode 15.1 specifies a total of 110 spread across two blocks. The standard set of chess pieces—king, queen, rook, bishop, knight, or pawn, with white and black variants—were included in the block Miscellaneous Symbols. In Unicode 12.0, the Chess Symbols block (U+1FA00–U+1FA6F) was allocated for inclusion of extra chess piece representations. This includes fairy chess pieces, such as rotated pieces, neutral (neither white nor black) pieces, knighted pieces, equihoppers, as well as xiangqi pieces.^[1]

In 2024, four shatranj pieces have been provisionally assigned for a future version in the range U+1FA54–U+1FA58.^[2]^[3]

v t e List of Unicode chess symbols^[1]^[2]
	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	A	B	C	D	E	F
U+265x					♔	♕	♖	♗	♘	♙	♚	♛	♜	♝	♞	♟
U+1FA0x	🨀	🨁	🨂	🨃	🨄	🨅	🨆	🨇	🨈	🨉	🨊	🨋	🨌	🨍	🨎	🨏
U+1FA1x	🨐	🨑	🨒	🨓	🨔	🨕	🨖	🨗	🨘	🨙	🨚	🨛	🨜	🨝	🨞	🨟
U+1FA2x	🨠	🨡	🨢	🨣	🨤	🨥	🨦	🨧	🨨	🨩	🨪	🨫	🨬	🨭	🨮	🨯
U+1FA3x	🨰	🨱	🨲	🨳	🨴	🨵	🨶	🨷	🨸	🨹	🨺	🨻	🨼	🨽	🨾	🨿
U+1FA4x	🩀	🩁	🩂	🩃	🩄	🩅	🩆	🩇	🩈	🩉	🩊	🩋	🩌	🩍	🩎	🩏
U+1FA5x	🩐	🩑	🩒	🩓
U+1FA6x	🩠	🩡	🩢	🩣	🩤	🩥	🩦	🩧	🩨	🩩	🩪	🩫	🩬	🩭
Notes 1.^ As of Unicode version 15.1 2.^ Grey areas indicate non-chess symbols or non-assigned code points

Emoji

This section contains Unicode emoticons or emojis. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of the intended characters.

In Unicode 11.0, an emojified representation of the character U+265F ♟ BLACK CHESS PAWN was added.^[4] As of Unicode 15.1, only this character has a emoji version. In 2024, a proposal was submitted to include emoji versions of the other standard chess symbols.^[5]

Emoji variation sequences
U+	265F
default presentation	text
base code point	♟
base+VS15 (text)	♟︎
base+VS16 (emoji)	♟️

References

^ "Chess Symbols" (PDF). unicode.org. Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 21 August 2023.
^ Bala, Gavin Jared; Miller, Kirk (22 December 2023). "Unicode request for shatranj symbols" (PDF). unicode.org. Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
^ Unicode. "Proposed New Characters: The Pipeline". unicode.org. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
^ Abdu, Juber Moulvi (2017-10-04). "Chess Emoji Submission" (PDF). unicode.org. Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 2024-08-12.
^ Daniel, Jeniffer (2024-04-15). "Emoji Standard & Research Working Group Report for UTC #179 (2024Q2)" (URL). unicode.org. Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 2024-08-12.

[1] "Chess Symbols" (PDF). unicode.org. Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 21 August 2023.

[2] Bala, Gavin Jared; Miller, Kirk (22 December 2023). "Unicode request for shatranj symbols" (PDF). unicode.org. Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 4 February 2024.

[3] Unicode. "Proposed New Characters: The Pipeline". unicode.org. Retrieved 4 February 2024.

[4] Abdu, Juber Moulvi (2017-10-04). "Chess Emoji Submission" (PDF). unicode.org. Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 2024-08-12.

[5] Daniel, Jeniffer (2024-04-15). "Emoji Standard & Research Working Group Report for UTC #179 (2024Q2)" (URL). unicode.org. Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 2024-08-12.

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