京

It also carries the extended mathematical meaning of 10¹⁶ (ten quadrillion).

It is an ideogram, depicting a tower or pavilion built on a raised platform. Originally it denoted a high place.

From this arose the derived senses “large, great” and “capital city.”

From as early as bronze inscriptions (金文 jinwen), terms such as 京師 and 京城 appear, which later came to mean simply “capital city” as a common noun.

Scholar Shirakawa Shizuka (白川靜) proposed an alternate interpretation: that 京 does not depict a pavilion on a hill or gate, but rather something akin to the Greek tropaion (τρόπαιον), a victory monument. In his view, 京 originally represented a mound built by piling up enemy corpses after battle (called 京丘, “capital mound”) and when topped with a tower or structure became 京觀, “capital monument.” Thus, the earliest meaning of 京 may have been a victory memorial tower rather than simply a city.

서울 (서울, 京) – Seoul (native name derived from “capital”)

경성 (京城) – old name for Seoul (“capital fortress”)

도쿄 (東京) – Tokyo (“eastern capital”)

북경 (北京) – Beijing (“northern capital”)

경사 (京師) – capital, metropolis (literary)

As its gloss (서울) suggests, the native Korean word 서울 originally meant “capital city” as a common noun, before becoming a proper noun referring specifically to today’s Seoul.

The character 京 is widely used across East Asia in place names such as 東京 (Tokyo, Eastern Capital) and 北京 (Beijing, Northern Capital). A similar character is 都 (도읍 도, “capital, metropolis”).

亰