字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

harbor

On’yomi コウ
Kun’yomi みなと

Origin

The character 港 combines water (the three-dot radical on the left) with a sound hint on the right that suggests how to pronounce it. Since a harbor is fundamentally a body of water where ships gather, the water component makes the meaning clear. The right side doesn't tell you about harbors themselves—it just phonetically hints that this character should be read with a sound similar to "ko" or "kou," helping Japanese readers know how to say the word aloud.

港 12 strokes

Components

  • 氵 radical left
  • 巷 sound hint right

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 開港 かいこう opening a port (seaport, airport, etc.); starting operations at a port
  • 寄港 きこう calling at a port
  • 漁港 ぎょこう fishing harbour; fishing harbor
  • 空港 くうこう airport
  • 軍港 ぐんこう naval port; naval station
  • 港内 こうない inside the harbour; inside the harbor
  • 港湾 こうわん harbour; harbor
  • 香港 ホンコン Hong Kong

Related kanji

Same radical

Reference

Strokes
12
Kangxi radical
85
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#495 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+06E2F