What's New in Recent Unicode Versions

Unicode releases a new version roughly once a year, adding new characters, scripts, and properties while never modifying or removing existing assignments. Each version expands the standard's coverage of historic scripts, modern symbols, and emoji. Here's a look at what recent major versions added.

Unicode 15.0 (2022)

Unicode 15.0 added 4,489 new characters, bringing the total to 149,186. New additions included the Kawi script (used in ancient Javanese and Malay inscriptions), Nag Mundari (a script used in India), and the CJK Unified Ideographs Extension H block with over 4,000 new Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters. New emoji included a moose, a phoenix, a lime, a shaking face, and various hand gestures.

Unicode 15.1 (2023)

Unicode 15.1 was a minor release adding 627 new characters. Notable additions: CJK Unified Ideographs Extension I (622 characters), several new Arabic Extended-B characters, and the Garay script for the Wolof language of Senegal. The smaller character count reflected a focus on maintenance and property improvements rather than new scripts.

How New Characters Become Unicode

Adding a character to Unicode is a formal process. Proposals are submitted to the Unicode Technical Committee, reviewed for evidence of existing use, assigned a code point in an appropriate block, and eventually included in a new version after a public review period. The process emphasizes stability: once assigned, a code point is never removed or reassigned to a different character.

Staying Current

Our character browser and blocks reference reflect the current Unicode version. If you're looking for a character that was added in a recent version and don't find it, check that your system's Unicode libraries are up to date — older versions of ICU, glibc, or Python's unicodedata module may not include the latest additions.