℃ Degrees Celsius Symbol
℃ is a single character for “degrees Celsius” — but it is a compatibility character, and the right way to write it is two characters: ° followed by C.
Also known as: degrees celsius symbol, celsius sign, centigrade symbol, degree c.
Codes
| Symbol | ℃ | |
| Preferred form | °C · U+00B0 + U+0043 | |
| Unicode | U+2103 | |
| HTML entity (decimal) | ℃ | |
| HTML entity (hex) | ℃ | |
| CSS | \2103 | |
| LaTeX | \celsius | |
| Windows Alt code | Alt + 8451 |
How to type ℃ (Degrees Celsius Symbol)
Type the degree sign with Alt + 0176, then type C — this gives °C, the form you actually want. (For the single ℃ character: type 2103 then Alt + X in Word.)
Press Shift + Option + 8 for °, then type C. (For the single ℃ character, use Character Viewer and search “celsius”.)
Type 2103, then press Alt + X for ℃. Better: type 00B0, Alt + X, then C to get °C.
Insert → Special characters, search “degree sign”, then type C. Searching “celsius” gives the single ℃ character.
\celsius comes from siunitx; \si{\degreeCelsius} is the fully-specified form. In plain LaTeX, $^\circ$C also works.
Usage
- Which one to use — this is the whole point of the page. ℃ (U+2103) is a compatibility character: Unicode includes it only so that older East-Asian encodings can round-trip. Its compatibility decomposition (NFKD) is literally ° + C, and the standard's own guidance is to write those two characters instead.
- Practical consequences of using ℃: NFKD normalization will split it into °C, so a database that normalizes on write and a search that does not will fail to match. Fonts often render it cramped or at the wrong weight. And it cannot take a space, whereas SI style wants one — 20 °C, not 20℃.
- So: write 20 °C — a degree sign (U+00B0), then C, with a non-breaking space before the number's unit. Reach for ℃ only when a system explicitly requires the single character.
- The same trap exists for ℉ (U+2109, degrees Fahrenheit) and for the ohm sign Ω (U+2126) — all compatibility characters standing in for a sequence you should be typing directly.