Characters (字) are logographic symbols that represent words, first developed in what is now Eastern China around 5,000 years ago. The use of Characters spread throughout East Asia and for thousands of years was the dominant and only form of writing known there. In the past different cultures, like the Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, and other ancient peoples, used these Characters to write their own languages, and more often than not developed their own as well. In this video I give a brief analysis of each documented culture that has or continues to use Chinese Character based writing systems to determine a total figure of how many Characters were ever developed.

Peoples covered and the local names for their scripts:
Chinese Characters - 漢字（繁体字）
Simplified Chinese Characters - 简体字
Singapore Simplified Characters - 新加坡簡體字
Japanese National Characters - 日本国字
Japanese New Character Forms - 日本新字体
Korean National Characters - 국자 (國字)
Korean Abbreviated Characters - 약자 (略字)
Vietnamese Chữ Nôm (𡨸喃)

Other Peoples:
Zhuang - Sawndip (Zhuang Script)
Khitan - Khitan Large Script
Jurchen - Jurchen Large Script
Western Xia - Tangut (Western Xia Script)
Sui - Sui Script (水書)
Yi - Classical Yi