History of education
Although there are more than 40,000 Chinese characters in written Chinese, many are rarely used. Studies have shown that full literacy in the Chinese language requires a knowledge of only between three and four thousand characters.
Table of General Standard Chinese Characters
The Table of General Standard Chinese Characters () is a standard list of 8,105 Chinese characters. Of these, 6,500 are designated as common, a reduction from the 7,000 in the earlier "List of Commonly Used Characters in Modern Chinese".