Symbol & Emoji Library

Arrow Symbols

Directional arrows in every weight and curvature.

By The UltraTextGen Editorial TeamEditorial standards

Short answer

Directional arrows in every weight and curvature, each a single Unicode character you can click to copy. Basic arrows are very widely supported; ornate variants depend on the reader's fonts.

Arrow Symbols — title card for the symbol & emoji library article on UltraTextGen.

Where these characters come from

Arrows are spread across several Unicode blocks — the original Arrows block, Supplemental Arrows A and B, and Miscellaneous Symbols and Arrows. They were encoded for mathematics, typesetting and technical documentation, which is why the collection is so much larger than everyday use requires.

How reliably they render

The cardinal arrows are among the most reliably rendered characters in Unicode and are safe almost everywhere. The heavier, curved and double-headed variants are newer and depend more on the reader's installed fonts.

Questions

Which arrows are safest to use?

The four cardinal arrows carried over from earlier character standards, so they render essentially everywhere. Curved, double-headed and ornamental arrows were added later and are the ones most likely to show as an empty box.

Why are there so many near-identical arrows?

Because Unicode encodes meaning rather than shape. A rightwards arrow, a function arrow and an implication arrow look similar but mean different things in mathematics, so each needed its own code point.

Code points and HTML entities

Char	Code point	HTML	CSS
←	`U+2190`	`←`	`\2190`
↑	`U+2191`	`↑`	`\2191`
→	`U+2192`	`→`	`\2192`
↓	`U+2193`	`↓`	`\2193`
↔	`U+2194`	`↔`	`\2194`
↕	`U+2195`	`↕`	`\2195`
↖	`U+2196`	`↖`	`\2196`
↗	`U+2197`	`↗`	`\2197`
↘	`U+2198`	`↘`	`\2198`
↙	`U+2199`	`↙`	`\2199`
⇐	`U+21D0`	`⇐`	`\21D0`
⇑	`U+21D1`	`⇑`	`\21D1`
⇒	`U+21D2`	`⇒`	`\21D2`
⇓	`U+21D3`	`⇓`	`\21D3`
⇔	`U+21D4`	`⇔`	`\21D4`
⇕	`U+21D5`	`⇕`	`\21D5`
⇖	`U+21D6`	`⇖`	`\21D6`
⇗	`U+21D7`	`⇗`	`\21D7`
⇘	`U+21D8`	`⇘`	`\21D8`
⇙	`U+21D9`	`⇙`	`\21D9`
↞	`U+219E`	`↞`	`\219E`
↠	`U+21A0`	`↠`	`\21A0`
↢	`U+21A2`	`↢`	`\21A2`
↣	`U+21A3`	`↣`	`\21A3`
↩	`U+21A9`	`↩`	`\21A9`
↪	`U+21AA`	`↪`	`\21AA`
↫	`U+21AB`	`↫`	`\21AB`
↬	`U+21AC`	`↬`	`\21AC`
↭	`U+21AD`	`↭`	`\21AD`
↮	`U+21AE`	`↮`	`\21AE`
↯	`U+21AF`	`↯`	`\21AF`
↰	`U+21B0`	`↰`	`\21B0`

Showing the first 32 of 65 characters. Every character in the grid above is clickable to copy, whether or not it appears in this table.

Geometric ShapesSquares, circles, triangles and blocks.Arrow Symbol (→)Direction, flow and consequence.

Sources

Unicode Consortium — Code Charts
The official code charts for every block referenced here.

More in Symbol & Emoji Library

Star Symbols Heart Symbols Currency Symbols Math Symbols Bracket Symbols Punctuation Symbols Geometric Shapes Music Symbols Zodiac Symbols Chess & Card Symbols Weather Symbols Tick & Cross Symbols