ISO-8859-1 (The International Standards Organization) is the default character set in most browsers.

The first 128 characters of ISO-8859-1 are the original ASCII character-set (the numbers from 0-9, the uppercase and lowercase English alphabet, and some special characters).

Reserved Characters in HTML

Some characters are reserved in HTML. That is because these are the characters making up the HTML language. For example, you cannot use the greater than or less than signs in your text, as the browser will try to interpret it as HTML. Then, use the entity name or entity number when you want to output any of the reserved characters.

See the list of the reserved characters in the table below:

Character Entity Number Entity Name Description
" " " quotation mark
' ' ' apostrophe 
& & & ampersand
< &#60; &lt; less-than
> &#62; &gt; greater-than

ISO 8859-1 Symbols

Character Entity Number Entity Name Description
  &#160; &nbsp; non-breaking space
¡ &#161; &iexcl; inverted exclamation mark
¢ &#162; &cent; cent
£ &#163; &pound; pound
¤ &#164; &curren; currency
¥ &#165; &yen; yen
¦ &#166; &brvbar; broken vertical bar
§ &#167; &sect; section
¨ &#168; &uml; spacing diaeresis
© &#169; &copy; copyright
ª &#170; &ordf; feminine ordinal indicator
« &#171; &laquo; angle quotation mark (left)
¬ &#172; &not; negation
�­ &#173; &shy; soft hyphen
® &#174; &reg; registered trademark
¯ &#175; &macr; spacing macron
° &#176; &deg; degree
± &#177; &plusmn; plus-or-minus
² &#178; &sup2; superscript 2
³ &#179; &sup3; superscript 3
´ &#180; &acute; spacing acute
µ &#181; &micro; micro
&#182; &para; paragraph
· &#183; &middot; middle dot
¸ &#184; &cedil; spacing cedilla
¹ &#185; &sup1; superscript 1
º &#186; &ordm; masculine ordinal indicator
» &#187; &raquo; angle quotation mark (right)
¼ &#188; &frac14; fraction 1/4
½ &#189; &frac12; fraction 1/2
¾ &#190; &frac34; fraction 3/4
¿ &#191; &iquest; inverted question mark
× &#215; &times; multiplication
÷ &#247; &divide; division

ISO 8859-1 Characters

Character Entity Number Entity Name Description
À &#192; &Agrave; capital a, grave accent
Á &#193; &Aacute; capital a, acute accent
 &#194; &Acirc; capital a, circumflex accent
à &#195; &Atilde; capital a, tilde
Ä &#196; &Auml; capital a, umlaut mark
Å &#197; &Aring; capital a, ring
Æ &#198; &AElig; capital ae
Ç &#199; &Ccedil; capital c, cedilla
È &#200; &Egrave; capital e, grave accent
É &#201; &Eacute; capital e, acute accent
Ê &#202; &Ecirc; capital e, circumflex accent
Ë &#203; &Euml; capital e, umlaut mark
Ì &#204; &Igrave; capital i, grave accent
Í &#205; &Iacute; capital i, acute accent
Î &#206; &Icirc; capital i, circumflex accent
Ï &#207; &Iuml; capital i, umlaut mark
Ð &#208; &ETH; capital eth, Icelandic
Ñ &#209; &Ntilde; capital n, tilde
Ò &#210; &Ograve; capital o, grave accent
Ó &#211; &Oacute; capital o, acute accent
Ô &#212; &Ocirc; capital o, circumflex accent
Õ &#213; &Otilde; capital o, tilde
Ö &#214; &Ouml; capital o, umlaut mark
Ø &#216; &Oslash; capital o, slash
Ù &#217; &Ugrave; capital u, grave accent
Ú &#218; &Uacute; capital u, acute accent
Û &#219; &Ucirc; capital u, circumflex accent
Ü &#220; &Uuml; capital u, umlaut mark
Ý &#221; &Yacute; capital y, acute accent
Þ &#222; &THORN; capital THORN, Icelandic
ß &#223; &szlig; small sharp s, German
à &#224; &agrave; small a, grave accent
á &#225; &aacute; small a, acute accent
â &#226; &acirc; small a, circumflex accent
ã &#227; &atilde; small a, tilde
ä &#228; &auml; small a, umlaut mark
å &#229; &aring; small a, ring
æ &#230; &aelig; small ae
ç &#231; &ccedil; small c, cedilla
è &#232; &egrave; small e, grave accent
é &#233; &eacute; small e, acute accent
ê &#234; &ecirc; small e, circumflex accent
ë &#235; &euml; small e, umlaut mark
ì &#236; &igrave; small i, grave accent
í &#237; &iacute; small i, acute accent
î &#238; &icirc; small i, circumflex accent
ï &#239; &iuml; small i, umlaut mark
ð &#240; &eth; small eth, Icelandic
ñ &#241; &ntilde; small n, tilde
ò &#242; &ograve; small o, grave accent
ó &#243; &oacute; small o, acute accent
ô &#244; &ocirc; small o, circumflex accent
õ &#245; &otilde; small o, tilde
ö &#246; &ouml; small o, umlaut mark
ø &#248; &oslash; small o, slash
ù &#249; &ugrave; small u, grave accent
ú &#250; &uacute; small u, acute accent
û &#251; &ucirc; small u, circumflex accent
ü &#252; &uuml; small u, umlaut mark
ý &#253; &yacute; small y, acute accent
þ &#254; &thorn; small thorn, Icelandic
ÿ &#255; &yuml; small y, umlaut mark

Variants of ISO-8859-1

Character set Description Covers
ISO-8859-1Latin 1North America, Western Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, Canada, Africa.
ISO-8859-2Latin 2Eastern Europe.
ISO-8859-3Latin 3SE Europe, Esperanto, miscellaneous others.
ISO-8859-4Latin 4Scandinavia/Baltics (and others not in ISO-8859-1).
ISO-8859-5Latin/CyrillicThe languages that use a Cyrillic alphabet such as Bulgarian, Belarusian, Russian and Macedonian.
ISO-8859-6Latin/ArabicThe languages that use the Arabic alphabet.
ISO-8859-7Latin/GreekThe modern Greek language as well as mathematical symbols derived from the Greek.
ISO-8859-8Latin/HebrewThe languages that use the Hebrew alphabet.
ISO-8859-9Latin/TurkishThe Turkish language. Same as ISO-8859-1 except Turkish characters replace Icelandic ones.
ISO-8859-10Latin/NordicThe Nordic languages.
ISO-8859-15Latin 9 (Latin 0)Similar to ISO-8859-1 but replaces some less common symbols with the euro sign and some other missing characters.
ISO-2022-JPLatin/Japanese 1The Japanese language.
ISO-2022-JP-2Latin/Japanese 2The Japanese language.
ISO-2022-KRLatin/Korean 1The Korean language.

See also HTML ASCII and HTML Entities.

Practice Your Knowledge

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