A pile of soil under a farm

 

Pinyin	lǐ
Meaning	inside; lining; interior; internal; neighborhood; a measure of length, appro 500 m
Radical	里	繁體字	里/裡/裹

	日
	土

writing patterns, not components

category: compound ideograph

structure: single

7stroke count

HSK 1

Breakdown

里 (lǐ) was originally a compound ideograph, consisting of 田 (tián) “farm” and 土 (tǔ) “soil,” referring to the place where people live and farm, meaning “neighborhood.” Today, it is considered an individual character, as the horizontal stroke in the middle merges the two parts into one. In simplified Chinese, the traditional character 裡 (lǐ) “inside,” including its variant 裹 (lǐ), is eliminated and replaced by 里 (lǐ).

Used as a component

里 (lǐ) plays different roles as a component. It can indicate the pronunciation, be a semantic component, or be a substitute for obsolete parts.

Used as a morpheme/word

里 (lǐ) mainly means “inside,” whether it is used as a word or morpheme. It can, however, refer to a place or a distance, but it cannot stand as a word in this regard.

How to pronounce

This character sounds like “Lee.”