---
title: 1.22 Wide Character Types
description: "C++ provides wide character types for representing characters that require more storage than the traditional `char` type. These types are primarily intended to support larger character sets and platform-specific character encodings. The language defines `wchar_t` as a built-in type for…"
url: "https://edcret.in/docs/cpp-programming/basic-refreshers-cplusplus/1-22-wide-character-types/"
updated: "2026-07-28"
category: C++ Programming / Basic Refreshers
---

# 1.22 Wide Character Types

C++ provides wide character types for representing characters that require more storage than the traditional `char` type. These types are primarily intended to support larger character sets and platform-specific character encodings.

The language defines `wchar_t` as a built-in type for wide characters. In addition, C++11 introduced `char16_t` and `char32_t` to represent UTF-16 and UTF-32 code units, respectively. These types provide more consistent support for Unicode text across different platforms.

## Source Code

```
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    std::wcout << L"Wide Character: " << L'A' << '\n';

    std::cout << "Size of wchar_t : " << sizeof(wchar_t) << " bytes\n";
    std::cout << "Size of char16_t: " << sizeof(char16_t) << " bytes\n";
    std::cout << "Size of char32_t: " << sizeof(char32_t) << " bytes\n";

    return 0;
}
```

## Output

```
Wide Character: A
Size of wchar_t : 2 bytes
Size of char16_t: 2 bytes
Size of char32_t: 4 bytes
```

> **Note:** The size of `wchar_t` is implementation-dependent. On many Windows systems it is 2 bytes, while on many Linux systems it is 4 bytes.

## Explanation

- `wchar_t` is a built-in type used to store wide characters.
- `char16_t` stores UTF-16 code units and always occupies 2 bytes.
- `char32_t` stores UTF-32 code units and always occupies 4 bytes.
- `std::wcout` is the standard output stream used for wide characters and wide strings.
- The prefix `L` before a character or string literal creates a wide-character literal.
- The `sizeof` operator returns the storage size of each character type in bytes.
- The size of `wchar_t` depends on the compiler and operating system, whereas `char16_t` and `char32_t` have fixed sizes defined by the C++ standard.
- `return 0;` terminates the program successfully.