The character 国 (guó): country

A grey stone rampart crosses the image under a pale blue sky, wooded hills behind it, a two storey gate tower with dark tiled roofs on vermilion posts above its arch. Under the arch, on a carved stone base, stands a pale green jade disc pierced by a round hole. At the right, on the cream ground, the character 国 in near black: a closed square enclosure, its uprights dropping below like feet, holding three bars on a stem, the lowest longest, with a small slanted dot at the right.

Pronunciation: guó
Strokes: 8
Radical: 囗
Made of: 囗玉

What it means

country; nation; state; (bound form) national

Where its shape comes from

The jade inside the walls arrived late, and it tells no story. The long form is 國: an enclosure, 囗, around 或 (huò), itself a halberd, 戈 (gē), plus the outline of a territory. Xu Shen glosses it as the country and analyses it as 囗 plus 或: land marked out and held by arms. The 1956 simplification put 玉 where 或 stood, taking up a popular variant long in circulation, 囯, the enclosure around the 王 learned earlier. The jade is a convenience of the brush, not an etymology.

Source: Xu Shen, Shuowen Jiezi (121 CE); the Chinese Character Simplification Scheme (1956); the Chinese University of Hong Kong character database.

A way to remember it

A square enclosure, and inside it the 王 of entry twelve with a dot set at its lower right, which makes 玉, jade. The wall closes only at the END: write its two sides, then everything inside, and keep the bottom bar for last.

This is a memory aid, not the origin of the character.

Words it appears in

中国 zhōng guó · HSK 1 China
国家 guó jiā · HSK 3 country; nation; state; CL:個|个[ge4]
国际 guó jì · HSK 4 international
国籍 guó jí · HSK 4 nationality
国王 guó wáng · HSK 5 king
国庆节 guó qìng jié · HSK 5 PRC National Day (October 1st)

Writing it

See the stroke order of 国, animated stroke by stroke.