Hanzi

Hanzi refers to the characters used in the written form of Chinese. They are logograms, meaning each character represents a word or a meaningful part of a word, rather than a sound as in alphabetic systems. Hanzi can vary in complexity, with some characters being simple while others are intricate. There are thousands of Hanzi characters, but literacy requires knowledge of about 3,000 to 4,000. They convey meanings and often have historical roots, reflecting the culture and history of China. Hanzi is also used in other languages like Japanese, where it's called Kanji.