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]

Miscellaneous symbols

**Chess Symbols**
Unicode.org chart (PDF)
Name	Symbol	Code point	HTML (decimal)	HTML (hex)
white chess king	Template:Chess Unicode	U+2654	♔	♔
white chess queen	Template:Chess Unicode	U+2655	♕	♕
white chess rook	Template:Chess Unicode	U+2656	♖	♖
white chess bishop	Template:Chess Unicode	U+2657	♗	♗
white chess knight	Template:Chess Unicode	U+2658	♘	♘
white chess pawn	Template:Chess Unicode	U+2659	♙	♙
black chess king	Template:Chess Unicode	U+265A	♚	♚
black chess queen	Template:Chess Unicode	U+265B	♛	♛
black chess rook	Template:Chess Unicode	U+265C	♜	♜
black chess bishop	Template:Chess Unicode	U+265D	♝	♝
black chess knight	Template:Chess Unicode	U+265E	♞	♞
black chess pawn	Template:Chess Unicode	U+265F	♟	♟

Chess symbols

Chess Symbols^[1]^[2] Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	A	B	C	D	E	F
U+1FA0x	🨀	🨁	🨂	🨃	🨄	🨅	🨆	🨇	🨈	🨉	🨊	🨋	🨌	🨍	🨎	🨏
U+1FA1x	🨐	🨑	🨒	🨓	🨔	🨕	🨖	🨗	🨘	🨙	🨚	🨛	🨜	🨝	🨞	🨟
U+1FA2x	🨠	🨡	🨢	🨣	🨤	🨥	🨦	🨧	🨨	🨩	🨪	🨫	🨬	🨭	🨮	🨯
U+1FA3x	🨰	🨱	🨲	🨳	🨴	🨵	🨶	🨷	🨸	🨹	🨺	🨻	🨼	🨽	🨾	🨿
U+1FA4x	🩀	🩁	🩂	🩃	🩄	🩅	🩆	🩇	🩈	🩉	🩊	🩋	🩌	🩍	🩎	🩏
U+1FA5x	🩐	🩑	🩒	🩓
U+1FA6x	🩠	🩡	🩢	🩣	🩤	🩥	🩦	🩧	🩨	🩩	🩪	🩫	🩬	🩭
Notes 1.^ As of Unicode version 16.0 2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

Emoji

This section contains Unicode emoticons or emoji. 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.^[2] 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.^[3]

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

[3] 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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