里

裏/裡

lǐ

一 + 甲

HSK 2.0Level 1

HSK 3.0Level 1

Frequency#50

Definitions

lǐ (noun) inside; interior

lǐ (noun) Chinese mile (measure of length, approx. 500m)

lǐ (noun) neighborhood; administrative district

Etymology

A village (里) is an area of land (土) where people have fields (田). In simplified Chinese 里 is also used to mean "inside", while in traditional Chinese this meaning is written with a separate character 裡.

About

The character 里 in its current simplified form represents a historical conflation of two originally distinct characters. One, written with the components 田 (field) above 土 (earth), originally referred to a village or a measure of distance, conceptually linking land and dwelling. The other, the traditional form 裏 (or 裡), combined 衣 (clothing) with 里 (which here provided phonetic hint), and meant "inner lining", leading to its extended meanings of "inside" or "interior". Over time, the simpler graph 里 was adopted to write both words, absorbing the abstract, spatial sense of "within" from the traditional form while retaining its own concrete meanings related to homeland and measurement.