Why is 'U+' used to designate a Unicode code point?

unicode codepoint
Senthil Kumaran picture Senthil Kumaran · Aug 13, 2009 · Viewed 17.1k times · Source

Why do Unicode code points appear as U+<codepoint>?

For example, U+2202 represents the character ∂.

Why not U- (dash or hyphen character) or anything else?

Answer

Jukka K. Korpela picture Jukka K. Korpela · Jan 17, 2012

The characters “U+” are an ASCIIfied version of the MULTISET UNION “⊎” U+228E character (the U-like union symbol with a plus sign inside it), which was meant to symbolize Unicode as the union of character sets. See Kenneth Whistler’s explanation in the Unicode mailing list.

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