Meaning & readings

metropolis, capital, all, everything

On’yomi ト、ツ
Kun’yomi みやこ
Nanori くに、ず、ち、づめ、みや

Origin

The character combines two parts to indicate a place of importance. The right component, a radical related to cities or places, provides the general category of meaning. The left component , which means "person," serves as a sound hint telling you how to pronounce the character — it's not meant to describe what a capital city is. Together, these components create a character for a major city or capital, the kind of place where important people gather and rule from.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).

11 strokes

Components

  • sound hint left
  • radical right

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

Common words

  • 古都 こと ancient city; former capital
  • 首都 しゅと (national) capital (city); metropolis
  • 都会 とかい city
  • 都合 つごう circumstances; condition
  • 都市 とし town; city
  • 都心 としん city centre (esp. of Tokyo); heart of a city
  • 都庁 とちょう Tokyo Metropolitan Government (Office)
  • 都度 つど each (every) time; whenever

Reference

Strokes
11
Kangxi radical
163
Grade
Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#123 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 3
Unicode
U+090FD