洼 (wā): depression, low-lying area, low-lying, sunken

洼 (wā) is a Chinese character meaning “depression.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), with radical 氵 (water). It ranks #3818 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 氵 water9 strokesFrequency #3818

Definitions

  1. depression
  2. low-lying area
  3. low-lying
  4. sunken

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
低洼dī wālow-lying
坑坑洼洼kēng keng wā wāfull of pits and hollows
坑洼kēng wāhole
洼地wā dìlow-lying ground
水洼shuǐ wāpuddle
山洼shān wāmountain hollow
6
Total compounds
17
As first character
67
As last character
17
As middle character

洼 appears in 6 compound words: 17 as the first character, 67 as the last, and 17 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

暴雨过后，洼水上涨，淹没了低洼的街道。

bào yǔ guò hòu , wā shuǐ shàng zhǎng , yān méi le dī wā de jiē dào .

After the heavy rain, the water rose and flooded the low-lying streets.

Character Family

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 洼 (wā) mean in Chinese?
洼 (wā) primarily means "depression." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #3818 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 洼 have?
洼 is written with 9 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 洼?
The radical associated with 洼 is 氵 (water). This radical appears in many characters related to water.
What are common words containing 洼?
Common words with 洼 include: 低洼 (dī wā, "low-lying"); 坑坑洼洼 (kēng keng wā wā, "full of pits and hollows"); 坑洼 (kēng wā, "hole"); 洼地 (wā dì, "low-lying ground"); 水洼 (shuǐ wā, "puddle"). There are over 6 compound words containing this character.
Is 洼 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 洼 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 洼 with real-time feedback

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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.