里 (lǐ) means "inside" with radical 里 (village), HSK 1 on the new exam.
Pronunciation
Meaning
Primary: inside
Etymology
Oracle-bone origin
里 is not attested in oracle bone script but appears in bronze inscriptions as a compound of 田 (field) over 土 (earth). The combination depicted a settled area of cultivated land with soil, representing a village or the land a community lived on. It is one of the clearer examples of a character built from two concrete agricultural components.
Form evolution
Bronze and seal forms show 田 stacked clearly above 土. Clerical script regularized the strokes and brought the two components into the tight vertical arrangement seen today. The modern 楷书 里 is visually almost identical to the clerical form, with the bottom 土 sharing its horizontal stroke with the base of 田.
How the meaning evolved
The original sense was 'village' or 'neighbourhood unit', and it became a standard administrative division and a unit of distance (about 500 metres today, historically variable). A separate character 裏 (inside, lining of a garment, built from 衣 clothing plus 里 phonetic) was merged into 里 during the 20th century simplification, so modern 里 now covers both 'village/mile' and 'inside'. This merger is why 里 can mean both a measure of distance and the preposition 'in'.
Cultural note
The traditional character set keeps these separate: 里 for village/mile and 裏 or 裡 for inside. On the mainland, 这里 (here) and 一千里 (a thousand li) now use the same graph, which masks their different origins. The idiom 千里之行，始于足下 (a journey of a thousand li begins with a single step) uses the distance sense.
Basic info
| Pinyin | lǐ |
| Meanings | inside |
| Radical | 里 (#166: village) |
| New HSK exam | Recognise at HSK 1 |
| Frequency | #585 most common |
Example sentences
Words containing 里
Related characters
On the new HSK 1 exam
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Frequently Asked Questions
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Reviewed by RJ Murray, Founder, HSK Lord.