Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

has text representations of

chess piece A chess piece, or chessman, is a game piece that is placed on a chessboard to play the game of chess. It can be either White and Black in chess, white or black, and it can be one of six types: King (chess), king, Queen (chess), queen, Rook (ches ...

s. These allow to produce the symbols using

plain text In computing, plain text is a loose term for data (e.g. file contents) that represent only characters of readable material but not its graphical representation nor other objects ( floating-point numbers, images, etc.). It may also include a lim ...

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. ♛f1 instead of Qf1. This also allows the play of chess games in text-only environments, such as the

terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output devices for a computer * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together ** Battery terminal, electrical contact used to ...

Unicode blocks

Unicode 15.1 specifies a total of 110 spread across two blocks. The standard set of chess pieces—

king King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

queen Queen most commonly refers to: * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen (band), a British rock band Queen or QUEEN may also refer to: Monarchy * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Q ...

rook Rook or rooks may refer to: Games *Rook (chess), a piece in chess that moves horizontally and vertically * Rook (card game), a trick-taking card game People, characters, individuals *a rookie, a rook * Russell Rook, Baron Rook (The Lord Rook; 21 ...

bishop A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

, or

pawn Pawn most often refers to: * Pawn (chess), the weakest and most numerous chess piece in the game * Pawnbroker or pawnshop, a business that provides loans by taking personal property as collateral Pawn or The Pawn may also refer to: Places * Pa ...

, with white and black variants—were included in the block

Miscellaneous Symbols Miscellaneous Symbols is a Unicode block (U+2600–U+26FF) containing glyphs representing concepts from a variety of categories: astrological, astronomical, chess, dice, musical notation, political symbols, recycling, religious symbols, trig ...

. In Unicode 12.0, the

Chess Symbols Chess Symbols is a Unicode block containing characters for fairy chess and related notations beyond the basic Western chess symbols (U+2654 to U+265F) in the Miscellaneous Symbols block, as well as symbols representing game pieces for xiangqi ...

block (U+1FA00–U+1FA6F) was allocated for inclusion of extra chess piece representations. This includes

fairy chess pieces A fairy chess piece, variant chess piece, unorthodox chess piece, or heterodox chess piece is a chess piece not used in conventional chess but incorporated into certain chess variants and some unorthodox chess problems, known as fairy chess. Compar ...

, such as rotated pieces, neutral (neither white nor black) pieces, knighted pieces, equihoppers, as well as

xiangqi Xiangqi (; ), commonly known as Chinese chess or elephant chess, is a Strategy game, strategy board game for two players. It is the most popular board game in China. Xiangqi is in the same family of games as shogi, janggi, chess, Western ches ...

pieces. In 2024, four

shatranj Shatranj (, ; from Middle Persian ) is an old form of chess, as played in the Sasanian Empire. Its origins lie in the South Asian game of chaturanga. Modern chess gradually developed from this game, as it was introduced to Europe by contacts in ...

pieces have been provisionally assigned for a future version in the range U+1FA54–U+1FA57.

Miscellaneous symbols

Chess symbols

Emoji

In Unicode 11.0, an emojified representation of the character was added. As of Unicode 15.1, only this character has an emoji version. In 2024, a proposal was submitted to include emoji versions of the other standard chess symbols.

References

{{Chess Chess notation Lists of symbols Unicode