(háng): boat, ship, craft

(háng) is a Chinese character meaning “boat.” Classified as HSK Level 4 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of (semantic) and (phonetic). It ranks #773 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, ship. Its radical form (boat) appears in many related characters such as (bān, sort), (chuán, boat), (jiàn, warship).

Native pronunciation

Definitions

  1. boat
  2. ship
  3. craft

Etymology & Origin

pictophoneticship

Decomposition: ⿰舟亢 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Practice writing with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
nounháng bān(scheduled) flight4
verbháng kōngaviation6

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
háng xíngto sail
dǎo háng(lit. and fig.) to navigate
yǔ háng yuánastronaut
线háng xiànair or shipping route
háng hǎito sail the seas
mí háng(of a ship, aircraft or migratory bird) to lose its way
háng xiàngcourse
háng dàowaterway
háng tiānspace flight
fǎn hángto return to the point of departure
háng kōng júaviation agency
yǔ háng júspace agency
qǐ háng(of a ship) to set sail
yuǎn hángto travel a great distance by sea or air
háng chéngflight
100
Total compounds
49
As first character
36
As last character
15
As middle character

appears in 100 compound words: 49 as the first character, 36 as the last, and 15 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Strongest Collocations

Characters that most frequently co-occur with in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

kōng
0.718588,699 co-occurrences
bān
0.551135,121 co-occurrences
lóu
0.49843,230 co-occurrences
0.48844,994 co-occurrences
xún
0.47945,060 co-occurrences
tiān
0.437117,678 co-occurrences
0.436102,888 co-occurrences
0.43156,478 co-occurrences
fēi
0.43125,196 co-occurrences
0.42949,170 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (3)

bǎojiàhùhángHSK 5+

to escort; to protect

phrase
hángkōng gōngsīHSK 4+

airline

noun
hángkōng mǔjiànHSK 7+

aircraft carrier

noun

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

老师教我们字的发音和笔顺。

lǎo shī jiào wǒ men háng zì de fā yīn hé bǐ shùn .

The teacher taught us the pronunciation and stroke order of the character "航."

中国新闻网_梳理天下新闻Feb 2026

受冬季风暴影响 美国数千架次班被取消

shòu dōng jì fēng bào yǐng xiǎng měi guó shǔ qiān jià cì háng bān bèi qǔ xiāo

Thousands of flights in the United States were canceled due to the winter storm

Investing 香港Feb 2026

加拿大空因安全局势暂停墨西哥巴亚尔塔港营运

jiā ná dà háng kōng yīn ān quán jú shì zàn tíng mò xī gē bā yà ěr tǎ gǎng yíng yùn

Air Canada suspended operations in the port of Vallarta, Mexico due to the security situation

百度新闻Feb 2026

千城百县看中国·护春运丨河北交通:智慧高速守护假..

qiān chéng bǎi xiàn kàn zhōng guó hù háng chūn yùn 丨 hé běi jiāo tōng : zhì huì gāo sù shǒu hù jiǎ . .

Thousands of cities and counties look at China and escort the Spring Festival丨Hebei Transportation: Smart highway guards the holiday:

百度新闻Feb 2026

大年初三车间灯就亮了,天老厂通过自研AI平台,稳..

dà nián chū sān chē jiān dēng jiù liàng le , háng tiān lǎo hǎn tōng guò zì yán A I píng tái , wěn . .

On the third day of the Lunar New Year, the workshop lights were turned on, and the old aerospace factory was steadily developed through the self-developed AI platform.

百度新闻Feb 2026

新春走基层丨国网株洲供电公司党员突击队护春节绿色..

xīn chūn zǒu jī céng 丨 guó wǎng zhū zhōu gōng diàn gōng sī dǎng yuán tū jī duì hù háng chūn jié lǜ sè . .

New Year to the grassroots丨State Grid Zhuzhou Power Supply Company party member commando escorts the Spring Festival green:

Tatoeba

数艘游艇在远方的海洋并列行。

Shù sōu yóutǐng zài yuǎnfāng de hǎiyáng bìngliè hángxíng.

Several yachts were sailing side by side far out at sea.

Tatoeba

一艘巨大的液货船刚刚启

Yī sōu jùdà de yè huòchuán gānggang qǐháng.

A huge tanker cast off just now.

Tatoeba

你们一天提供几班飞往纽约的班?

Nǐmen yī tiān tígōng jǐ bān fēi wǎng Niǔyuē de hángbān?

How many flights to New York do you offer a day?

Tatoeba

您寄空还是海运?

Nín jì hángkōng háishì hǎiyùn?

Do you like to send it by air mail or by surface mail?

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced háng

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 航 (háng) mean in Chinese?
航 (háng) primarily means "boat." It is classified as HSK Level 4, making it an upper-intermediate character. It ranks #773 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 航 and 坑?
航 (háng) and 坑 (kēng) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 舟 vs 土 (same 亢 component).
How many strokes does 航 have?
航 is written with 10 strokes. The correct stroke order matters for recognition and handwriting speed — practice with the animated guide above to build proper technique.
What is the radical of 航?
The radical associated with 航 is 舟 (boat). This radical appears in many characters related to boat.
What are the components of 航?
航 is composed of: 舟 (semantic), 亢 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰舟亢 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 航?
Common words with 航 include: 航班 (háng bān, "(scheduled) flight"); 航空 (háng kōng, "aviation"); 航行 (háng xíng, "to sail"); 导航 (dǎo háng, "(lit. and fig.) to navigate"); 宇航员 (yǔ háng yuán, "astronaut"). There are over 100 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 航 (háng)?
Several characters share the pronunciation háng: 杭 (abbr. for Hangzhou 杭州), 吭 (throat), 行 ((bound form) row). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 航 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 航 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear native pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

Character data sourced from Unihan (Unicode Consortium), SUBTLEX-CH frequency corpus (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010), and Make Me a Hanzi (stroke data). Collocation strength measured via NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information). Verified by the HanziFeed linguistics team.

HSK classification follows the HSK 3.0 Standard (Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC, 2022 revision). Idiom data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Data last verified: March 2026.