市 (shì) is a Chinese character meaning “market”. It is written from 亠 (lid) and 巾 (cloth), one above the other, and takes 5 strokes.
Build the character for “market; city”
Four steps: break it apart, build it, recall it, use it in a word.
StartLearn this character
Structure
亠 + 巾
Top–bottom structure
Structure from: Unicode U+5E02 and hanzi-writer-data modern glyph inspection (five strokes: 亠 head over 巾)
Memory aid
A lid (亠) stretched over a cloth (巾) — rows of cloth-covered stalls under one roof. That is a market, and the town that grew around it.
This is a memory aid, not the historical origin.
Stroke order
5 strokes
In real words
- 城市chéng shìcity市 = shì
- 市长shì zhǎngmayor市 = shì
- 超市chāo shìsupermarket市 = shì
Go deeper
All readings
market; city
market; marketplace; city; municipal
做买卖的场所；也指城市、行政上的市。 — studyhanzi 编写
Words with this reading
- 城市chéng shìcity市 = shì
- 市长shì zhǎngmayor市 = shì
- 超市chāo shìsupermarket市 = shì
Stroke data: hanzi-writer-data (Arphic Public License) · licenses & attributions
Questions people ask about this character
What does 市 mean?
市 (shì) means market; marketplace; city; municipal.
How do you pronounce 市?
It is pronounced shì.
What parts is 市 made of?
亠 (lid) and 巾 (cloth), one above the other. The recorded source is: Unicode U+5E02 and hanzi-writer-data modern glyph inspection (five strokes: 亠 head over 巾). Components are the building blocks of the shape; the radical used for dictionary lookup is a separate thing.
How many strokes does 市 have?
5. You can watch the stroke order on this page, or trace it yourself.
What is the radical of 市?
巾. 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 市?
Common ones are 城市 and 市长. The reading of 市 is not the same in every word, so each word on this page shows which reading applies.