from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
Han character
Han Unification
Unified Han
Unihan
<character> (From the Han dynasty, 206 B.C.E to 25 C.E.) One
of the set of {glyphs} common to Chinese (where they are
called "hanzi"), Japanese (where they are called {kanji}), and
Korean (where they are called {hanja}).
Han characters are generally described as "ideographic", i.e.,
picture-writing; but see the reference below.
Modern Korean, Chinese and Japanese {fonts} may represent a
given Han character as somewhat different glyphs. However, in
the formulation of {Unicode}, these differences were {folded},
in order to conserve the number of {code positions} necessary
for all of {CJK}. This unification is referred to as "Han
Unification", with the resulting character repertoire
sometimes referred to as "Unihan".
Unihan reference at the Unicode Consortium
(http://charts.unicode.org/unihan.html).
[John DeFrancis, "The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy",
University of Hawaii Press, 1984].
(1998-10-18)