Chinese characters have developed from ancient hieroglyphics to today's Chinese characters, and have undergone many changes and reforms; However, almost all the reforms in the past dynasties were eclectic, resulting in more and more Chinese characters. At present, the number of Chinese characters is amazing. The commonly used Xinhua dictionary has more than 10000 Chinese characters. Ci Hai published by 1990 has 14872 Chinese characters; Kangxi Dictionary compiled by 17 16 has 47035 Chinese characters; Guo Moruo once estimated by Japanese friends that there are about 60,000 Chinese characters in China. The Sea of Chinese Characters published by 1994 has 870 19 Chinese characters (including 320 repeated words); Recently, according to the Chinese character database published by Beijing Guoan Information Equipment Company, * * received 9 125 1 Chinese characters with sources. Among them, 2 1.303 Chinese characters are applicable at the first level, including Chinese characters proposed by national standards, 6,699 Chinese characters with China ancient and modern surnames of 1.200, and current rural first-class place names; There are 365,865,438+0 secondary applicable Chinese characters, including Chinese characters with complete sound and meaning in authoritative dictionaries of ancient and modern times, and Chinese characters used in ancient books such as Thirteen Classics and Twenty-four History. There are 33,367 third-level spare Chinese characters, including uncommon characters, abnormal characters and unclear sounds and meanings. Excluding miscellaneous books, unofficial history local chronicles, celebrity notes and other homemade Chinese characters; There are also variants and synonyms with different writing methods, such as orthography, cursive script, official script and seal script. There are 147 other words in Shuo Wen Jie Zi. It is estimated that the actual number of Chinese characters is about 65,438+10,000; It is also estimated that there are more than 120000; How many Chinese characters there are in China is still inconclusive.