The character 山 (shān): mountain

On a cream ground, the character 山 in matt black stands in the foreground, very thick, with softly rounded stroke ends: a tall central upright, two shorter uprights either side of it, and a base bar joining all three. Behind it rises a range of blue grey mountains with snow on the ridges, the central peak the highest, and a bank of white mist lying across their feet.

Pronunciation: shān
Strokes: 3
Radical: 山

What it means

mountain; hill (CL:座[zuo4]); (coll.) small bundle of straw for silkworms to spin cocoons on

Where its shape comes from

Three peaks standing side by side. On the oldest inscriptions they are drawn as triangles rather than as the straight strokes we write today. The graph pictures the thing it names and combines no other element with it: a pictogram, with nothing in dispute.

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

A way to remember it

Three uprights rising from a single base, with the tallest of them in the middle. It is exactly the outline anyone produces without thinking when asked to sketch a mountain, which makes this one of the easiest characters of all to hold on to.

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

Words it appears in

爬山 pá shān · HSK 3 to climb a mountain; to mountaineer; hiking; mountaineering
山脉 shān mài · HSK 6 mountain range; CL:條|条[tiao2]
山东 shān dōng see 山東省|山东省[Shan1dong1 Sheng3]
山西 shān xī see 山西省[Shan1xi1 Sheng3]
山上 shān shàng Shanshang township in Tainan county 台南縣|台南县[Tai2 nan2 xian4], Taiwan
山水 shān shuǐ water from a mountain; mountains and rivers; scenery; landscape

Writing it

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