Traditional Chinese characters (;
Pinyin: ) are
Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the standardized character sets
of Taiwan,
of Hong Kong and
Macau or in the
Kangxi Dictionary. The modern shapes of traditional Chinese characters first appeared with the emergence of the
clerical script during the
Han Dynasty, and have been more or less stable since the 5th century (during the
Southern and Northern Dynasties.) The
retronym "traditional Chinese" is used to contrast traditional characters with
Simplified Chinese characters, a standardized character set introduced by the government of the
People's Republic of China on
Mainland China in the 1950s. Traditional Chinese characters are currently used in
Taiwan,
Hong Kong, and
Macau; as well as in
Overseas Chinese communities outside of Southeast Asia, although the number of printed materials in simplified characters is growing in Australia, USA and Canada, targeting or created by new arrivals from mainland China. Currently, a large number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore and Malaysia in official publications. The
debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities.
