U+2019 · Final quote
HTML entity
’
Right Single Quotation Mark Symbol ’
’ is right single quotation mark, U+2019. Unicode also records it as “single comma quotation mark”. It was added in Unicode 1.1, and Unicode files it under Final quote.
Also known as
- single comma quotation mark
Unicode 1.0 called this character single comma quotation mark. The standard renamed it later, but documents, fonts and font-editing tools from that era still use the old name.
What Unicode says about ’
this is the preferred character to use for apostrophe
— annotation from the Unicode Standard, NamesList.txt
Codes & technical data
| Unicode | U+2019 | |
|---|---|---|
| HTML hex | ’ | |
| HTML decimal | ’ | |
| CSS | \2019 | |
| JavaScript | \u{2019} | |
| Python | \U00002019 | |
| Java / C# | \u2019 | |
| Rust | \u{2019} | |
| Swift | \u{2019} | |
| PHP | \u{2019} | |
| URL encoded | %E2%80%99 | |
| UTF-8 bytes | E2 80 99 | |
| UTF-16 bytes | 2019 | |
| Base64 | 4oCZ | |
| Decimal | 8217 | |
| HTML entity | ’ | |
| Category | Final quote (Pf) | |
| Introduced | Unicode 1.1 | |
Will ’ survive being pasted?
- Normalisation. Yes. ’ is unchanged by NFKC, so it survives normalising systems intact.
- 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.
Unicode cross-references
The standard points readers of ’ at these characters — usually because they look alike, or because one is the correct choice where the other is often used by mistake.
Other quotation characters
Unicode names 14 characters ending in “quotation”. They differ by direction, weight or decoration rather than by meaning.
Nearby in General Punctuation
The typographic marks that word processors quietly substitute for their ASCII lookalikes — real quotation marks, en and em dashes, the ellipsis. It also holds the invisible characters: zero-width spaces, joiners and directional marks that do work without drawing anything.
How to type ’
| Windows | Type 2019 then press Alt+X |
|---|---|
| macOS | Press Ctrl+Cmd+Space, then search for “right single quotation mark” |
| Linux | Press Ctrl+Shift+U, type 2019, press Enter |
| HTML | ’ |
About Unicode’s Final quote category
This is a final quotation mark. Its partner varies by language, so the same character can open a quote in one locale and close it in another.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I type the ’ right single quotation mark symbol?
- On Windows, type 2019 and press Alt+X. On Linux press Ctrl+Shift+U then 2019. On any system the quickest route is the copy button on this page.
- What is the code for ’?
- Right Single Quotation Mark is U+2019, written in HTML as ’. In UTF-8 it takes 3 bytes. The table above lists every escape format.
- What kind of character is ’?
- Right Single Quotation Mark is filed under Final quote in the General Punctuation block, and was introduced in Unicode 1.1. This is a final quotation mark. Its partner varies by language, so the same character can open a quote in one locale and close it in another.