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