川 (chuān) is a Chinese character meaning “river”. It is written from 丿 (left-falling stroke) and 丨 (vertical stroke) and 丨 (vertical stroke), and takes 3 strokes.
Build the character for “river”
Four steps: break it apart, build it, recall it, use it in a word.
StartLearn this character
Structure
丿 + 丨 + 丨
Left–middle–right structure
Structure from: Unicode U+5DDD; modern glyph decomposition cross-checked against hanzi-writer-data 2.0.1 stroke data
Memory aid
Set one left-falling stroke (丿) beside two vertical strokes (丨, 丨), like three streams flowing as a river.
This is a memory aid, not the historical origin.
Stroke order
3 strokes
In real words
- 山川shān chuānmountains and rivers川 = chuān
- 四川sì chuānSichuan川 = chuān
Go deeper
All readings
river
river; stream; plain between mountains
河流；也指山间或高原间的平地。 — studyhanzi 编写
Words with this reading
- 山川shān chuānmountains and rivers川 = chuān
- 四川sì chuānSichuan川 = chuān
Easy to confuse with
Stroke data: hanzi-writer-data (Arphic Public License) · licenses & attributions
Questions people ask about this character
What does 川 mean?
川 (chuān) means river; stream; plain between mountains.
How do you pronounce 川?
It is pronounced chuān.
What parts is 川 made of?
丿 (left-falling stroke) and 丨 (vertical stroke) and 丨 (vertical stroke). The recorded source is: Unicode U+5DDD; modern glyph decomposition cross-checked against hanzi-writer-data 2.0.1 stroke data. Components are the building blocks of the shape; the radical used for dictionary lookup is a separate thing.
How many strokes does 川 have?
3. You can watch the stroke order on this page, or trace it yourself.
What is the radical of 川?
巛. The radical is how the character is filed in a dictionary — it is not the whole story of how the character is built.
What words use 川?
Common ones are 山川 and 四川. The reading of 川 is not the same in every word, so each word on this page shows which reading applies.