城 (chéng): city

Meanings

1 city
2 city walls
3 town

Characters

城

chéng

city; city wall

Contains the 土 (earth) radical — ancient city walls were built from rammed earth.

Examples

进城去买东西。

Jìnchéng qù mǎi dōngxi.

Go into town to buy things.

这座城有很长的历史。

Zhè zuò chéng yǒu hěn cháng de lìshǐ.

This city has a long history.

长城是中国的象征。

Chángchéng shì Zhōngguó de xiàngzhēng.

The Great Wall is a symbol of China.

Tips

usage

城 originally meant 'city walls' and by extension came to mean the city itself. Common compounds: 城市 (city), 长城 (Great Wall), 城镇 (towns).

Components

radical

土 tǔ

earth; soil

Left earth radical, a small mound of soil rising from a ground line. Supplies the meaning: a wall or city raised from packed earth. Ancient Chinese cities were defined by their rammed-earth ramparts, and this radical marks 城 as a place built up from the soil rather than something you do or feel.

phonetic

成 chéng

to complete

Right 成 supplies the sound — exact match, chéng with no drift. It also contributes a faint semantic echo: a city is something 'completed, made whole' through walling and gates. Same phonetic family includes 诚 (sincere), 盛 (flourishing), 晟, all sharing the chéng/shèng phonetic series.