U+2103 · Other symbol
Degree Celsius Symbol ℃
℃ is degree celsius, U+2103. Unicode records it as a compatibility form of °C (compat form). It was added in Unicode 1.1, and Unicode files it under Other symbol.
Also known as
- degrees centigrade
Unicode 1.0 called this character degrees centigrade. The standard renamed it later, but documents, fonts and font-editing tools from that era still use the old name.
Codes & technical data
| Unicode | U+2103 | |
|---|---|---|
| HTML hex | ℃ | |
| HTML decimal | ℃ | |
| CSS | \2103 | |
| JavaScript | \u{2103} | |
| Python | \U00002103 | |
| Java / C# | \u2103 | |
| Rust | \u{2103} | |
| Swift | \u{2103} | |
| PHP | \u{2103} | |
| URL encoded | %E2%84%83 | |
| UTF-8 bytes | E2 84 83 | |
| UTF-16 bytes | 2103 | |
| Base64 | 4oSD | |
| Decimal | 8451 | |
| Decomposes to | °C (compat form) | |
| Category | Other symbol (So) | |
| Introduced | Unicode 1.1 | |
Will ℃ survive being pasted?
- Normalisation. No. Anything that applies NFKC — search indexes, usernames, domain names, programming identifiers — rewrites ℃ as
°C. Safe for display, not for storage. - Legacy encodings. ℃ is Unicode-only — it has no Latin-1 equivalent, so a system stuck on an 8-bit encoding cannot represent it.
- Size. 3 bytes in UTF-8. Character-limited fields — SMS, bios, some form validators — usually count bytes, not characters.
Nearby in Letterlike Symbols
Characters built out of letters but treated as symbols — ℃ ℉ №, the trademark and service marks, and the script and blackletter letters that mathematics uses as distinct variables. Most normalise back to plain letters, which is worth knowing before pasting one into a password field.
How to type ℃
| Windows | Type 2103 then press Alt+X |
|---|---|
| macOS | Press Ctrl+Cmd+Space, then search for “degree celsius” |
| Linux | Press Ctrl+Shift+U, type 2103, press Enter |
| HTML | ℃ |
About Unicode’s Other symbol category
Unicode files this under "other symbol" — the catch-all for pictographs, signs and marks that are neither maths, currency, nor letter-like. It is the largest symbol category in the standard.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I type the ℃ degree celsius symbol?
- On Windows, type 2103 and press Alt+X. On Linux press Ctrl+Shift+U then 2103. On any system the quickest route is the copy button on this page.
- What is the code for ℃?
- Degree Celsius is U+2103. In UTF-8 it takes 3 bytes. The table above lists every escape format.
- Will ℃ survive being pasted anywhere?
- Not always. Degree Celsius is a compatibility character: any system that applies Unicode NFKC normalisation — search indexes, usernames, identifiers — replaces it with °C. Use it for display, not where text is normalised.