The earth radical 土

Read tǔ, 3 strokes. It indexes 54 distinct HSK characters.

54HSK characters

3Strokes

#32Radical number

土Glyph

Quick answer

What does the earth radical (土) mean, and which characters use it?

Earth (土, tǔ) is Kangxi radical 32, and it usually marks a character whose meaning is connected to earth. 54 distinct HSK characters are filed under it, the most common being 地, 场, 在. When you meet a new character carrying 土, expect its sense to touch earth and let the other component hint at the sound.

How this radical works inside a character

Most characters built on 土 follow the meaning-plus-sound pattern: 土 sits on one side to signal the earth sense, and a second component supplies the approximate pronunciation. So you are rarely memorizing a whole new shape, you are recognizing earth plus a part you may already read. The list below is in corpus-frequency order, so the characters you will actually meet first are at the top: learn them in this order and the rest of the earth-radical family gets easier as you go.

All 54 earth characters 54 characters

#	Char	Pīnyīn	Strokes	HSK 3.0	HSK 2.0
1	地	de	6	1	3
2	场	chǎng	6	1	2
3	在	zài	6	1	1
4	型	xíng	9	4	5
5	土	tǔ	3	3	5
6	境	jìng	14	3	3
7	增	zēng	15	3	4
8	基	jī	11	3	4
9	坚	jiān	7	3	4
10	城	chéng	9	3	3
11	坏	huài	7	1	3
12	堂	táng	11	2	6
13	坦	tǎn	8	5	5
14	域	yù	11	5	5
15	埋	mái	10	6	6
16	墓	mù	13	6	6
17	坐	zuò	7	1	1
18	墙	qiáng	14	2	4
19	培	péi	11	4	5
20	填	tián	13	4	4
21	壁	bì	16	5	5
22	址	zhǐ	7	4	4
23	均	jūn	7	4	5
24	塑	sù	13	4	4
25	堪	kān	12	7-9	6
26	塌	tā	13	7-9	6
27	块	kuài	7	1	1
28	堵	dǔ	11	4	4
29	堆	duī	11	5	5
30	圣	shèng	5	6	6
31	塞	sāi	13	6	6
32	坠	zhuì	7	7-9	·
33	垂	chuí	8	7-9	6
34	垫	diàn	9	7-9	6
35	圾	jī	6	4	4
36	垃	lā	8	4	4
37	坡	pō	8	6	6
38	塔	tǎ	12	6	5
39	坛	tán	7	7-9	6
40	坝	bà	7	7-9	6
41	坟	fén	7	7-9	6
42	堡	bǎo	12	7-9	6
43	堤	dī	12	7-9	6
44	坑	kēng	7	7-9	6
45	坪	píng	8	7-9	·
46	垄	lǒng	8	7-9	6
47	垒	lěi	9	7-9	·
48	垦	kěn	9	7-9	·
49	垮	kuǎ	9	7-9	·
50	堕	duò	11	7-9	6
51	塘	táng	13	7-9	6
52	墅	shù	14	7-9	6
53	墟	xū	14	7-9	6
54	壤	rǎng	20	7-9	6

tone 1 tone 2 tone 3 tone 4 neutral Order = corpus frequency, most common first · · = not in that scheme

Strokes and radical assignment come from the Unicode Han Database (Unicode 17.0.0, field kRSUnicode); the HSK levels and the frequency order are computed from the shipped HSK word lists. A small number of characters have a contested radical across dictionaries; the primary Unicode analysis is used throughout. Last verified 2026-07-24. See the full radical explorer or the characters-per-level reference.

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Drill the earth-radical characters on a schedule

This list is free to browse and self-test here, always. If you would rather practice recognizing these characters on your phone with spaced repetition, we recommend Wordbrush, our one disclosed pick. Never a gate on this page.

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