#Character Encoding

• JavaScript String Length and Unicode

  7 min read • Published on June 1, 2023 • Last Updated On July 17, 2025

  Understand why '👨‍👩‍👧‍👦'.length returns 11 instead of 1, and learn how to properly handle Unicode characters, grapheme clusters, and international text in JavaScript applications.TL;DRJavaScript’s string.length property counts UTF-16 code units, not user-perceived characters. Modern Unicode text—especially emoji and combining characters—requires multiple code units per visual character. Use Intl.Segmenter for grapheme-aware operations.