South West Double Arrow
About this character
The character ⇙ carries the official Unicode name “South West Double Arrow” and the code point U+21D9, which is 8665 in decimal. It belongs to the Arrows block (U+2190–U+21FF), which gathers single, double and curved arrows used in typography, mathematics and user interfaces.
In memory, ⇙ takes 3 bytes in UTF-8 (0xE2 0x87 0x99) and 1 in UTF-16 (0x21D9). That difference is why badly configured forms or databases garble this character: they assume one byte per character.
How to type ⇙
| System | What to do |
|---|---|
| Windows | In Word or WordPad, type 21D9 and press Alt + X to turn the code into the character. |
| macOS | On a Mac, open the Character Viewer with Ctrl + ⌘ + Space and search for “South West Double Arrow”. |
| Linux | On Linux (GTK), type Ctrl + ⇧ + U, 21D9 then press Enter. |
| HTML / Web | In an HTML page, write ⇙. Use \21D9 in CSS, \u21D9 in JavaScript and \u21D9 in Python. |
| On this site | The simplest route is the Copy button above: the character goes straight to your clipboard, ready to paste anywhere. |
Keyboards that include ⇙
This character is not on any common physical layout, so the Copy button above is the quickest way to get it into a document.
Codes and encodings
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Code point | U+21D9 |
| Unicode block | Arrows (U+2190–U+21FF) |
| Decimal | 8665 |
| Hexadecimal | 0x21D9 |
| Octal | 020731 |
| Binary | 10000111011001 |
| UTF-8 bytes | 0xE2 0x87 0x99 |
| UTF-16 units | 0x21D9 |
| Named HTML entity | None |
| Decimal HTML entity | ⇙ |
| Hex HTML entity | ⇙ |
| CSS escape | \21D9 |
| JavaScript escape | \u21D9 |
| Python escape | \u21D9 |
| URL encoding | %E2%87%99 |
Frequently asked questions
What is the Unicode code for ⇙?
Its code point is U+21D9, which is 8665 in decimal and 020731 in octal. In HTML you can write it as ⇙ or ⇙.
Why does ⇙ show up as a box or a question mark?
An empty box means the font has no glyph for U+21D9. The character is still in the text: switching to a font that covers the block (Noto, DejaVu or Segoe UI Symbol) makes it appear.
Can I use ⇙ in a filename, a URL or a password?
In a URL it must be encoded as %E2%87%99. Modern filesystems accept it, though it is still risky when moving files between systems. For passwords, some forms reject non-ASCII characters outright.