CHARACTER ENTITY REFERENCES IN HTML

for international characters, symbols, mathematical symbols, and Greek letters

In order to give authors a more intuitive way of referring to characters in the document character set, HTML offers a set of character entity references. Character entity references use symbolic names so that authors need not remember code positions. For example, the character entity reference å (refers to the lowercase "a" character topped with a ring; "å") is easier to remember than å.

Character entity references are case-sensitive. Thus, Å refers to a different character (uppercase A, ring; Å) than å (lowercase a, ring; å).

Mathematical symbols

Description	Character	Entity number	Entity name
no-break space
middle dot	·	·	·
multiplication sign	×	×	×
minus sign	−	−	−
asymptotic to	≈	≈	≈
sum of	∑	∑	∑
proportional to	∝	∝	&prop;
infinity	∞	∞	∞
per mille sign	‰	‰	&permil;
arrow left	←	←	←
arrow up	↑	↑	↑
less than	<	<	<
less-than or equal to	≤	≤	≤
right-pointing	»	»	»
double quote	"	"	"
en dash	–	–	–
circled plus	⊕	⊕	&oplus;
copyright sign	©	©	©
euro sign	€		€
inverted exclamation mark	¡	¡	¡

Description	Character	Entity number	Entity name
ampersand	&	&	&
plus-minus sign	±	±	±
division sign	÷	÷	÷
asterisk operator	∗	∗	&lowast;
not equal to	≠	≠	≠
partial differential	∂	∂	∂
integral	∫	∫	∫
square root	√	√	√
double arrow right	⇒	⇒	⇒
arrow right	→	→	→
arrow down	↓	↓	↓
greater than	>	>	>
greater-than or equal to	≥	≥	≥
left-pointing	«	«	«
degree sign	°	°	°
equivalence	≡	≡	&equiv;
nabla	∇	∇	∇
registered sign	®	®	®
pound sign	£	£	£
inverted question mark	¿	¿	¿

International characters

Capital letter
Description	Character	Entity number	Entity name
A with grave	À	À	À
A with acute	Á	Á	Á
A with circumflex	Â	Â	Â
A with tilde	Ã	Ã	Ã
A with diaeresis	Ä	Ä	Ä
A with ring above	Å	Å	Å
AE dipthong	Æ	Æ	Æ
C with cedilla	Ç	Ç	Ç
E with grave	È	È	È
E with acute	É	É	É
E with circumflex	Ê	Ê	Ê
E with diaeresis	Ë	Ë	Ë
I with grave	Ì	Ì	Ì
I with acute	Í	Í	Í
I with circumflex	Î	Î	Î
I with diaeresis	Ï	Ï	Ï
Capital N, tilde mark	Ñ	Ñ	Ñ
O with grave	Ò	Ò	Ò
O with acute	Ó	Ó	Ó
O with circumflex	Ô	Ô	Ô
O with tilde	Õ	Õ	Õ
O with diaeresis	Ö	Ö	Ö
o with stroke	Ø	Ø	Ø
U with grave	Ù	Ù	Ù
U with acute	Ú	Ú	Ú
U with circumflex	Û	Û	Û
U with diaeresis	Ü	Ü	Ü
Y with acute	Ý	Ý	Ý
Y with diaeresis	Ÿ	ß	&Yuml;
micro sign	µ	µ	µ

Small letter
Description	Character	Entity number	Entity name
a with grave	à	à	à
a with acute	á	á	á
a with circumflex	â	â	â
a with tilde	ã	ã	ã
a with diaeresis	ä	ä	ä
a with ring above	å	å	å
ae dipthong	æ	æ	æ
c with cedilla	ç	ç	ç
e with grave	è	è	è
e with acute	é	é	é
e with circumflex	ê	ê	ê
e with diaeresis	ë	ë	ë
i with grave	ì	ì	ì
i with acute	í	í	í
i with circumflex	î	î	î
i with diaeresis	ï	ï	ï
Small N, tilde mark	ñ	ñ	ñ
o with grave	ò	ò	ò
o with acute	ó	ó	ó
o with circumflex	ô	ô	ô
o with tilde	õ	õ	õ
o with diaeresis	ö	ö	ö
o with stroke	ø	ø	ø
u with grave	ù	ù	ù
u with acute	ú	ú	ú
u with circumflex	û	û	û
u with diaeresis	ü	ü	ü
y with acute	ý	ý	ý
y with diaeresis	ÿ	ÿ	ÿ
sharp s	ß	ß	ß

Greek alphabet

Capital letter
Description	Character	Entity number	Entity name
Alpha	Α	Α	Α
Beta	Β	Β	Β
Gamma	Γ	Γ	Γ
Delta	Δ	Δ	Δ
Epsilon	Ε	Ε	Ε
Zeta	Ζ	Ζ	Ζ
Eta	Η	Η	Η
Theta	Θ	Θ	Θ
Iota	Ι	Ι	Ι
Kappa	Κ	Κ	Κ
Lambda	Λ	Λ	Λ
Mu	Μ	Μ	Μ
Nu	Ν	Ν	Ν
Xi	Ξ	Ξ	Ξ
Omicron	Ο	Ο	Ο
Pi	Π	Π	Π
Rho	Ρ	Ρ	Ρ
Sigma	Σ	Σ	Σ
Tau	Τ	Τ	Τ
Upsilon	Υ	Υ	Υ
Phi	Φ	Φ	Φ
Chi	Χ	Χ	Χ
Psi	Ψ	Ψ	Ψ
Omega	Ω	Ω	Ω

Small letter
Description	Character	Entity number	Entity name
alpha	α	α	α
beta	β	β	β
gamma	γ	γ	γ
delta	δ	δ	δ
epsilon	ε	ε	ε
zeta	ζ	ζ	ζ
eta	η	η	η
theta	θ	θ	θ
iota	ι	ι	ι
kappa	κ	κ	κ
lambda	λ	λ	λ
mu	μ	μ	μ
nu	ν	ν	ν
xi	ξ	ξ	ξ
omicron	ο	ο	ο
pi	π	π	π
rho	ρ	ρ	ρ
sigma	σ	σ	σ
tau	τ	τ	τ
upsilon	υ	υ	υ
phi	φ	φ	φ
chi	χ	χ	χ
psi	ψ	ψ	ψ
omega	ω	ω	ω

A user agent may not be able to render all characters in a document meaningfully, for instance, because the user agent lacks a suitable font, a character has a value that may not be expressed in the user agent's internal character encoding, etc.

Bibliography:

"Character entity references in HTML 4." W3C. 10 June 2011. <http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/sgml/entities.html>
O. Dag. "About ISO and Unicode." 21 Nov. 2004. orWell.ru. 10 June 2011. <http://orwell.ru/test/ISO/>
Alan Wood. "HTML 4.01 Character Entity References" 10 May 1997. 14 Jul. 2011. <http://www.alanwood.net/demos/ent4_frame.html>

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Citing this page:

Generalic, Eni. "Character entity references in HTML." EniG. Periodic Table of the Elements. KTF-Split, 18 Jan. 2024. Web. {Date of access}. <https://www.periodni.com/character_entity_references_in_html.html>.