The character 田 (tián): field

Rice paddies seen from the air: large plots of emerald and tender green divided by narrow ochre dikes, a few of them flooded and holding the blue of the sky, the whole running across the picture on a slant. In the middle, on one plain plot, the character 田 in dark brown: a square cut into four cells by a cross that reaches all four sides.

Pronunciation: tián
Strokes: 5

What it means

field; farm; CL:片[pian4]

Where its shape comes from

A field seen from above, divided up by its paths. Xu Shen describes it quite literally: plots of land, and in the middle the cross made by the tracks that separate them. The early forms do not always cut out four of those plots; the square neatly quartered is a later tidying up of the graph.

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

A way to remember it

The frame of 口 (kǒu), the mouth, and inside it a cross whose two strokes reach all four sides of that frame. Four compartments come out of it, neither three nor six.

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

Words it appears in

田径 tián jìng · HSK 6 track and field (athletics)
田野 tián yě · HSK 6 field; open land; CL:片[pian4]
丰田 fēng tián Toyota or Toyoda (name); Toyota, Japanese car make
本田 běn tián Honda (Japanese name)
油田 yóu tián oil field
田园 tián yuán fields; countryside; rural; bucolic

Writing it

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