What is the difference between Single Left-pointing Angle Quotation Mark and Less-than Sign?

Single Left-pointing Angle Quotation Mark is U+2039 in the General Punctuation block. Less-than Sign is U+003C in the Basic Latin block. They are distinct Unicode codepoints and may appear visually similar depending on the font.

What is the HTML entity for Single Left-pointing Angle Quotation Mark?

The HTML entity for Single Left-pointing Angle Quotation Mark (U+2039) is &lsaquo;.

What is the HTML entity for Less-than Sign?

The HTML entity for Less-than Sign (U+003C) is <.

Are Single Left-pointing Angle Quotation Mark and Less-than Sign the same Unicode character?

No. Single Left-pointing Angle Quotation Mark is U+2039 (decimal 8249) and Less-than Sign is U+003C (decimal 60). They are separate codepoints.

What are the UTF-8 encodings of Single Left-pointing Angle Quotation Mark and Less-than Sign?

Single Left-pointing Angle Quotation Mark (U+2039) encodes as E2 80 B9 in UTF-8. Less-than Sign (U+003C) encodes as 3C in UTF-8.

Single Left-pointing Angle Quotation Mark vs Less-than Sign

Q: Are Single Left-pointing Angle Quotation Mark and Less-than Sign the same Unicode character?

No. Single Left-pointing Angle Quotation Mark is U+2039 (decimal 8249) and Less-than Sign is U+003C (decimal 60). They are separate codepoints.

Q: What are the UTF-8 encodings of Single Left-pointing Angle Quotation Mark and Less-than Sign?

Single Left-pointing Angle Quotation Mark (U+2039) encodes as E2 80 B9 in UTF-8. Less-than Sign (U+003C) encodes as 3C in UTF-8.

Compare two Unicode characters side by side — encodings, HTML entities, escape sequences, and Unicode properties. Useful for distinguishing visually similar characters like hyphens and dashes, quotation marks, or homoglyphs.

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Single Left-pointing Angle Quotation Mark

U+2039

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Less-than Sign

U+003C

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Property Comparison

Property	Single Left-pointing Angle Quotation Mark	Less-than Sign
Codepoint	`U+2039`	`U+003C`
Decimal	`8249`	`60`
HTML Entity	`&lsaquo;`	`<`
HTML Decimal	`‹`	`<`
HTML Hex	`‹`	`<`
UTF-8	`E2 80 B9`	`3C`
UTF-16	`20 39`	`00 3C`
UTF-32	`00002039`	`0000003C`
CSS Escape	`\2039`	`\3C`
JS Escape	`\u2039`	`\u003C`
Python Escape	`\u2039`	`\u003C`
URL Encoded	`%E2%80%B9`	`%3C`
Category	`Initial Punctuation (Pi)`	`Math Symbol (Sm)`
Block	`General Punctuation`	`Basic Latin`
Script	`Common`	`Common`
Bidi Class	`ON`	`ON`
Unicode Version	`1.1`	`1.1`

Rows highlighted in amber differ between the two characters.

Common Comparisons

Frequently confused character pairs.

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