About Left Double Quotation Mark Double Turned Comma Quotation Mark
Left Double Quotation Mark Double Turned Comma Quotation Mark is the Unicode character “ at codepoint U+201C in the General Punctuation block of the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP).
Reference
In English this opens a double quotation, and Unicode names it and its partner as the preferred pair where the straight mark would otherwise stand in. The chart also marks it preferred as opposed to U+201F, the reversed form. Elsewhere it does the opposite job: CLDR's German locale gives quotation start as U+201E, the low-9 mark, and quotation end as this character — so a German sentence stops quoting with the mark English uses to start. It is general category Pi, initial punctuation, Windows-1252 0x93, and it has two named HTML entities, “ and “.
Typical uses
- Opening a double quotation in English and most locales that follow CLDR's root
- Closing a quotation in German, which opens low with U+201E
- Closing the alternate pair in Russian, whose primary marks are guillemets
At a glance
- U+201C, General Punctuation; Unicode 1.1; general category Pi
- Chart note: preferred character as opposed to U+201F
- HTML: “ or “. Windows-1252 0x93
- Three variation sequences: non-fullwidth, right-justified fullwidth, Sibe
Historical Notes
Origins
Two turned commas, raised — which is exactly what its Unicode alias says: double turned comma quotation mark. The closing mark is the same pair unturned, aliased double comma quotation mark. Metal type made the distinction physical; the typewriter collapsed it into one vertical stroke and ASCII kept the collapse.
Unicode
Unicode 1.1, General Punctuation, general category Pi. The chart cross-references the straight quote, the ornament U+275D and U+301D, the reversed double prime quotation mark used in East Asian typography.
Which language uses which
CLDR's own locale files record the pairings, and they are less uniform than English practice suggests: German opens U+201E and closes with this mark; Polish opens U+201E and closes with U+201D; French and Russian use guillemets; Swedish and Finnish use U+201D at both ends; Japanese uses corner brackets. English and CLDR's root locale open with this character and close with U+201D.
Developer Notes
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How to Use Left Double Quotation Mark Double Turned Comma Quotation Mark
To use the Left Double Quotation Mark Double Turned Comma Quotation Mark symbol (“) in HTML, insert the
entity “ directly into your markup. The decimal entity “ works in any HTML-serialised document.
In CSS pseudo-elements use content: '\201C';.
In JavaScript and TypeScript the escape '\u201C' evaluates to “. In Python source, write '\u201C'.
The character encodes to E2 80 9C as UTF-8 bytes and 201C as UTF-16 code units. Its decimal codepoint is 8220.
This is a text-based Unicode character. It will render in the current font on most platforms. If a font lacks this glyph, the browser may show a placeholder or fall back to a system font.
Things to know
- Windows-1252 0x93, so it round-trips through legacy eight-bit data. Read as Windows-1252, a UTF-8 U+201C comes out as “.
- General category Pi, not Po. Category-based classification treats it differently from the straight mark.
- Do not assume it opens. In German it closes; in Swedish and Finnish it is not used at all. If you are generating quotation marks by locale, read CLDR rather than hard-coding a pair.
- Smart-quote conversion decides direction from position in the word, which is why an apostrophe at the start of a word gets curled the wrong way.
- Two named entities resolve to it, “ and “. They are equivalent.
Comparisons
In the Wild
Der Spiegel's home page, on 4 August 2026, is the clean demonstration: four occurrences of U+201E, four of this character, and zero of U+201D. The pairs read „So ist Fußball“, „Ballbesitz interessiert mich nicht, mich interessieren bloß Tore!“ and „Frei erfunden“ — opening low, closing high, exactly as CLDR's German locale specifies.
The New York Times used it the English way on the same day, four times, all in body copy: a project described as a “transformational” one for the tribe, and a company promising to handle claims “in a way that is best for the survivor”. Its headlines used single quotes instead.
Absences: English Wikipedia's Electron and Absolute zero articles carried 396 and 112 straight double quotes and zero of these; BBC News and NOS carried none either. Dagens Nyheter carried none while using 64 closing marks, which is Swedish practice. Pages change; this is what those showed on the day.
FAQ
Does it always open a quotation?
No. In German it closes one, and Swedish and Finnish do not use it at all. English and CLDR's root locale open with it.
What opens a German quotation?
U+201E, the double low-9 mark. CLDR's German locale gives that as quotation start and this character as quotation end.
Why does my page show “?
An encoding mismatch: Windows-1252 has it at 0x93 while UTF-8 uses three bytes.
What is U+201F?
The reversed form, double high-reversed-9 quotation mark. Unicode's chart says this character is preferred.
Is “ real?
Yes, and it is equivalent to “. Both are in the WHATWG entity table.