Stroke-based sorting

Stroke-based sorting, also called stroke-based ordering or stroke-based order, is one of the five sorting methods frequently used in modern Chinese dictionaries, the others being <a href="/facts/Radical_(Chinese_characters)/VzphA4Rc">radical-based sorting</a>, <a href="/facts/Pinyin-based_sorting/96slYj8r">pinyin-based sorting</a>, <a href="/facts/Bopomofo/bPvvdrur">bopomofo</a> and the <a href="/facts/Four-corner_method/LV73hsnt">four-corner method</a>. In addition to functioning as an independent sorting method, stroke-based sorting is often employed to support the other methods. For example, in <a href="/facts/Xinhua_Dictionary/sL1vgapk">Xinhua Dictionary</a> (新华字典), <a href="/facts/Xiandai_Hanyu_Cidian/h68uLEHW">Xiandai Hanyu Cidian</a> (现代汉语词典) and Oxford Chinese Dictionary, stroke-based sorting is used to sort homophones in <a href="/facts/Pinyin/pUwjfMXg">Pinyin</a> sorting, while in <a href="/facts/Radical_(Chinese_characters)/VzphA4Rc">radical-based sorting</a> it helps to sort the radical list, the characters under a common radical, as well as the list of characters difficult to lookup by radicals.
In stroke-based sorting, Chinese characters are ordered by different features of strokes, including stroke counts, stroke forms, stroke orders, stroke combinations, stroke positions, etc.

Stroke-based sorting open-in-new

Stroke-based sorting