Lion Emoji

Animals

A cartoonish, forward-facing lion head featuring a golden-yellow mane, rounded ears, and a calm expression. It represents the king of the jungle and is the most common way to depict big cats in digital chat.

Usage Context

Frequently used to represent bravery, pride, or someone with a bold personality. It is the go-to choice for fans of the Leo zodiac sign and often appears alongside the 🐯 or 🐱 when discussing wildlife or safari themes.

History

Added to the Unicode standard in 2015 as part of Emoji 1.0, the lion was introduced following a global push for more diverse animal representation, quickly becoming a staple in social media bios and nature-themed conversation.

Details

Glyph

🦁

Unicode

U+1F981

Shortcode

:emoji_u1f981:

HTML Entity

&#xD83E;&#xDD81;

Specifications

Vendor Google

Category Animals

Subcategory animal-mammal

Unicode Version 6.0

Emoji Version 1.0

License CC-BY 4.0

Google Noto License

Emoji graphics by Twitter/X, licensed under CC-BY 4.0

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