Kangxi radicals

They are encoded in Unicode alongside other CJK characters, under the block "Kangxi radicals", while graphical variants are included in the block "CJK Radicals Supplement".

Originally introduced in the 1615 Zihui, they are more commonly referred to in relation to the 1716 Kangxi Dictionary—Kangxi being the commissioning emperor's era name.

In modern times, many dictionaries that list Traditional Chinese head characters continue to use this system, for example the Wang Li Character Dictionary of Ancient Chinese (2000).

The same ten radicals account for 7,141 out of the 20,992 characters (34%) in the Unicode CJK Unified Ideographs block as it was introduced in 1992, as follows: Modern Chinese dictionaries continue to use the Kangxi radical-stroke order, both in traditional zìdiǎn (字典, lit.

For example, Hanyu Da Cidian, the most inclusive available Chinese dictionary (published in 1993) has 23,000 head character entries organized by a novel system of 200 radicals.

Distribution of the number of entries per radical in the Kangxi Dictionary