Regional indicator symbol letter b Emoji

Flags

A blue square featuring a bold, white uppercase letter B. This is a regional indicator symbol designed to work in pairs to form country codes, though it is frequently used standalone to represent the letter itself or the blood type B.

Usage Context

Used in text messaging to create flag icons for countries like Belgium or Brazil. Beyond its function in flags, it has gained internet fame as a shorthand for the blood type B or as a playful visual substitution for the letter B in words, often seen alongside the 🅰️ or 🅾️ emojis.

History

These characters were added to the Unicode standard in 2010 as a method for software to render national flags without needing a unique image for every country. By combining two regional indicators, developers could signal to a device's operating system which flag to display from its local library.

Details

Glyph

🇧

Unicode

U+1F1E7

Shortcode

:emoji_u1f1e7:

HTML Entity

&#xD83C;&#xDDE7;

Specifications

Vendor Google

Category Flags

Subcategory country-flag

Unicode Version 6.0

Emoji Version 1.0

License Apache-2.0 / OFL-1.1

Google Noto License

Emoji graphics by Google. © Google Inc. Licensed under Apache License 2.0 and SIL Open Font License 1.1 where applicable.

Noto Color Emoji graphics are copyrighted by Google Inc. and licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. Font files may also be subject to the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1.

Apache 2.0 SIL OFL 1.1 Noto Repository