Code unit

A code unit is the basic component used by a character encoding system (such as UTF-8 or UTF-16). A character encoding system uses one or more code units to encode a Unicode {{Glossary("code point")}}.

In {{glossary("UTF-8")}}, each code point is encoded using between one and four 8-bit code units.

In {{glossary("UTF-16")}}, each code point is encoded using one or two 16-bit code units.

See also

• {{glossary("Code point")}}
• {{glossary("UTF-8")}}
• {{glossary("UTF-16")}}
• Unicode encoding FAQ