Won sign

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Won sign

The won sign (₩) is a currency symbol that represents:

And in fiction:

Computing

The directory separator character also appears on Korean versions of Microsoft Windows as ₩, because ₩ occupies the same position (0x5C) on code page 949 that backslash occupies in ASCII.[1]

Encoding

The Unicode code point is U+20A9 won sign (HTML ₩).

Additionally, there is also a sign at U+FFE6 fullwidth won sign (HTML ₩ · in the block Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms) for use with wide fonts, especially east Asian fonts.

U+20A9 is not merely used in South Korea. Alternatively, the backslash (U+005C \ ) is used on Microsoft Windows and the fullwidth form (U+FFE6 ) is used on Mac OS. In many South Korean fonts for Windows, the backslash has the shape of the Won sign including system fonts such Gulim (굴림) and Malgun Gothic (맑은 고딕).

References

  1. When is a backslash not a backslash?