Variation Selectors Supplement

See also: Variation Selectors (Unicode block)

Short description: Unicode block containing additional Variation Selectors

Short description: Unicode character block

Variation Selectors Supplement
Range	U+E0100..U+E01EF (240 code points)
Plane	SSP
Scripts	Inherited
Assigned	240 code points
Unused	0 reserved code points
Unicode version history
4.0	240 (+240)
Note:

Variation Selectors Supplement is a Unicode block containing additional variation selectors beyond those found in the Variation Selectors block.

These combining characters are named variation selector-17 (for U+E0100) through to variation selector-256 (U+E01EF), abbreviated VS17 – VS256.

Ideographic Variation Sequences

As of 23 October 2025, VS17 (U+E0100) to VS48 (U+E011F) are used in ideographic variation sequences in the Unicode Ideographic Variation Database (IVD). These selectors are known as Ideographic Variation Selectors (IVS). They are not listed in the list of standardized variation sequence, instead they are listed in another Ideographic Variation Database.

IVD collections

The following IVS collections are currently registered in the IVD:

• All Adobe sequences
• Contrastive Adobe sequences}}

Region	Name	Purpose	First registered	Last updated	Number of sequences	Chart
Japan	Moji_Joho	Unicode characters corresponding to more than one entry in the Moji Jōhō Kiban, a database of kanji used for administrative purposes in Japan. Supersedes and deprecates the Hanyo-Denshi collection, from which it retains 9866 of the existing IVSes.	2014-05-16	2017-12-12	11384	All Moji Jōhō sequences
Macau	MSARG	Macao Supplementary Character Set (MSCS)	2016-08-15	2020-11-06	154	All MSCS sequences
South Korea	KRName	Standard character variants permitted in personal names in South Korea	2017-12-12		36	All Korean name sequences
China	CAAPH	Variant forms required for digitization of intangible cultural heritage in databases and e-books by the Culture and Art Publishing House.	2025-07-14		198	All CAAPH sequences

Proposed IVD collections

As of 23 October 2025, there are no IVD collection submissions under review.

Similarly to the Moji Jōhō Kiban's role in Japan, the character repertoire of CNS 11643 (including draft revisions) is used for administrative purposes in Taiwan. In some cases, multiple of these correspond to a single Unicode character. Many of these cases are currently handled with mappings to the Supplementary Private Use Area. However, the Taipei Computer Association, which represents the interests of Taiwan in the Ideographic Research Group, has been evaluating the feasibility of registering an additional IVD collection in the future.

History

The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Variation Selectors Supplement block:

Version	Final code points	Count	L2 ID	WG2 ID	Document
L2/98-039		Aliprand, Joan; Winkler, Arnold (1998-02-24), Preliminary Minutes - UTC #74 & L2 #171, Mountain View, CA - December 5, 1997
L2/98-277		Hiura, Hideki; Kobayashi, Tatsuo (1998-07-29), Plane 14 Variant tag
L2/98-281R (pdf, html)		Aliprand, Joan (1998-07-31), Unconfirmed Minutes – UTC #77 & NCITS Subgroup L2 # 174 JOINT MEETING, Redmond, WA -- July 29-31, 1998
L2/01-268		Freytag, Asmus (2001-06-27), Variant selector
L2/01-309		Jenkins, John (2001-08-08), Variation selectors and Han
L2/01-295R		Moore, Lisa (2001-11-06), Minutes from the UTC/L2 meeting #88
L2/02-154	N2403	Umamaheswaran, V. S. (2002-04-22), Draft minutes of WG 2 meeting 41, Hotel Phoenix, Singapore, 2001-10-15/19
L2/02-372	N2453 (pdf, doc)	Umamaheswaran, V. S. (2002-10-30), Unconfirmed minutes of WG 2 meeting 42