The character 中 (zhōng): middle

An archery ground on green lawn in front of a red and gold Chinese pavilion, under a golden sky. On the left, resting on a wooden trestle, a large round straw target with cream and yellow rings and a red centre, an arrow with red fletching planted in the red. On the right, on the grass, the character 中 in very dark brown: an empty rectangle run through the middle by an upright stem that projects above and below it.

Pronunciation: zhōng
Strokes: 4
Radical: 丨
Made of: 口丨

What it means

within; among; in; middle; center; while (doing sth); during; (dialect) OK; all right

Where its shape comes from

Xu Shen glosses it as "the inside" and takes it apart into an enclosure and a stroke that "passes through from top to bottom". The oracle bones show more: an upright pole planted in the ground with streamers flying on either side, a rallying banner raised in the middle of the camp, and the sense of centre follows from that gathering point. The streamers dropped out of the regularised form; the pole and the enclosure stayed. The arrow struck in a target appears in no early source.

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

A way to remember it

The rectangle of 口, learned earlier, with a shaft planted straight through the middle of it. It sticks out ABOVE AND BELOW, and that overshoot is what makes the character: stopped at the edges of the frame, it would leave you nothing but a crossed box.

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

Words it appears in

中国 zhōng guó · HSK 1 China
中午 zhōng wǔ · HSK 1 noon; midday; CL:個|个[ge4]
中文 zhōng wén · HSK 3 Chinese language
中间 zhōng jiān · HSK 3 the middle; the inside; in the middle; within; between; among; during; in the meantime
其中 qí zhōng · HSK 4 among; in; included among these
中心 zhōng xīn · HSK 5 center; heart; core

Writing it

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