Latin character Z with caron
About this character
The character ž is known as Latin character Z with caron and carries the Unicode code point U+017E, which is 382 in decimal. It belongs to the Latin Extended-A block (U+0100–U+017F), which gathers the accented letters of Central and Northern European languages missing from Latin-1, such as Polish, Czech and Hungarian.
In memory, ž takes 2 bytes in UTF-8 (0xC5 0xBE) and 1 in UTF-16 (0x017E). That difference is why badly configured forms or databases garble this character: they assume one byte per character.
How to type ž
| System | What to do |
|---|---|
| Windows | In Word or WordPad, type 017E and press Alt + X to turn the code into the character. |
| macOS | On a Mac, open the Character Viewer with Ctrl + ⌘ + Space and search for “Latin character Z with caron”. |
| Linux | On Linux (GTK), type Ctrl + ⇧ + U, 017E then press Enter. |
| HTML / Web | In an HTML page, write ž. Use \017E in CSS, \u017E in JavaScript and \u017E in Python. |
| On this site | The simplest route is the Copy button above: the character goes straight to your clipboard, ready to paste anywhere. |
Keyboards that include ž
This character sits directly on the following ClavierVirtuel layouts, where you can click it with the mouse:
Codes and encodings
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Code point | U+017E |
| Unicode block | Latin Extended-A (U+0100–U+017F) |
| Decimal | 382 |
| Hexadecimal | 0x017E |
| Octal | 0576 |
| Binary | 101111110 |
| UTF-8 bytes | 0xC5 0xBE |
| UTF-16 units | 0x017E |
| Named HTML entity | None |
| Decimal HTML entity | ž |
| Hex HTML entity | ž |
| CSS escape | \017E |
| JavaScript escape | \u017E |
| Python escape | \u017E |
| URL encoding | %C5%BE |
Frequently asked questions
What is the Unicode code for ž?
Its code point is U+017E, which is 382 in decimal and 0576 in octal. In HTML you can write it as ž or ž.
Why does ž show up as a box or a question mark?
An empty box means the font has no glyph for U+017E. The character is still in the text: switching to a font that covers the block (Noto, DejaVu or Segoe UI Symbol) makes it appear.
Can I use ž in a filename, a URL or a password?
In a URL it must be encoded as %C5%BE. Modern filesystems accept it, though it is still risky when moving files between systems. For passwords, some forms reject non-ASCII characters outright.