How to Write 邡 (fāng) — Meaning “Fang (a place name).”

Imagine a town (阝) that has a big square (方) in the middle, and the town's name is "Fang" — sounds like "fang" as in a vampire’s tooth. Just remember this town has a square fang!

Write the left radical 阝 first (two strokes: horizontal hook, then vertical line), then the right part 方 (four strokes: dot, horizontal, horizontal hook, left-falling). A common mistake is writing the strokes of 方 in the wrong order — always start with the top dot, then the horizontal line.

邡 has the component 方 on the right, while 邓 has 又 (meaning "again") and 邗 has 干 (meaning "dry"). 邡 is only used in place names like 什邡, 邓 is a common surname, and 邗 appears in place names like 邗江. Visually, look for the hook shape in 方 versus straight lines in 又 and 干.

邡 is almost exclusively found in the name 什邡 (Shifang), a city in Sichuan province famous for its earthquake in 2008. It is not in HSK and rarely used elsewhere, so you'll only encounter it in geography or history lessons about that region.

Common words containing 邡 include: 什邡 (shén fāng) — Shifang (a city in Sichuan); 什邡市 (shén fāng shì) — Shifang City; 邡县 (fāng xiàn) — Fang County..