Entertainment and culture
| MIME / IANA | windows-1251 |
|---|---|
| Alias(es) | cp1251 (Code page 1251) |
| Language(s) | Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Serbian Cyrillic, Bosnian Cyrillic, Macedonian, Rotokas, Rusyn, English |
| Created by | Microsoft |
| Standard | WHATWG Encoding Standard |
| Classification | extended ASCII, Windows-125x |
| Other related encoding(s) | Amiga-1251, KZ-1048, RFC 1345's "ECMA-Cyrillic" |
Windows-1251 is an 8-bit character encoding, designed to cover languages that use the Cyrillic script such as Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Serbian Cyrillic, Macedonian and other languages.
On the web, it is the second most-used single-byte character encoding (or third most-used character encoding overall), and most used of the single-byte encodings supporting Cyrillic. As of January 2024[update], 0.3% of all websites use Windows-1251.[1][2] It's by far mostly used for Russian, while a small minority of Russian websites use it, with 94.6% of Russian (.ru) websites using UTF-8,[3][4][5] and the legacy 8-bit encoding is distant second. In Linux, the encoding is known as cp1251.[6] IBM uses code page 1251 (CCSID 1251 and euro sign extended CCSID 5347) for Windows-1251.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13]
Windows-1251 and KOI8-R (or its Ukrainian variant KOI8-U) are much more commonly used than ISO 8859-5 (which is used by less than 0.0004% of websites).[14] In contrast to Windows-1252 and ISO 8859-1, Windows-1251 is not closely related to ISO 8859-5.
Unicode (e.g. UTF-8) is preferred to Windows-1251 or other Cyrillic encodings in modern applications, especially on the Internet, making UTF-8 the dominant encoding for web pages. (For further discussion of Unicode's complete coverage, of 436 Cyrillic letters/code points, including for Old Cyrillic, and how single-byte character encodings, such as Windows-1251 and KOI8-R, cannot provide this, see Cyrillic script in Unicode.)
Character set
[edit]The following table shows Windows-1251. Each character is shown with its Unicode equivalent and its Alt code.
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
| 0x | NUL | SOH | STX | ETX | EOT | ENQ | ACK | BEL | BS | HT | LF | VT | FF | CR | SO | SI |
| 1x | DLE | DC1 | DC2 | DC3 | DC4 | NAK | SYN | ETB | CAN | EM | SUB | ESC | FS | GS | RS | US |
| 2x | SP | ! | " | # | $ | % | & | ' | ( | ) | * | + | , | - | . | / |
| 3x | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | : | ; | < | = | > | ? |
| 4x | @ | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O |
| 5x | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | [ | \ | ] | ^ | _ |
| 6x | ` | a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | o |
| 7x | p | q | r | s | t | u | v | w | x | y | z | { | | | } | ~ | DEL |
| 8x | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | … | ? | ? | € | ‰ | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 9x | ? | ‘ | ’ | “ | ” | ? | – | — | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | |
| Ax | NBSP | ? | ? | ? | ¤ | ? | | | § | Ё | ? | ? | ? | ? | SHY | ? | ? |
| Bx | ° | ± | ? | ? | ? | μ | ? | · | ё | № | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| Cx | А | Б | В | Г | Д | Е | Ж | З | И | Й | К | Л | М | Н | О | П |
| Dx | Р | С | Т | У | Ф | Х | Ц | Ч | Ш | Щ | Ъ | Ы | Ь | Э | Ю | Я |
| Ex | а | б | в | г | д | е | ж | з | и | й | к | л | м | н | о | п |
| Fx | р | с | т | у | ф | х | ц | ч | ш | щ | ъ | ы | ь | э | ю | я |
Kazakh variants
[edit]KZ-1048
[edit]An altered version of Windows-1251 was standardised in Kazakhstan as Kazakh standard STRK1048, and is known by the label KZ-1048. It differs in the rows shown below:
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
| 8x | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | … | ? | ? | € | ‰ | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 9x | ? | ‘ | ’ | “ | ” | ? | – | — | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | |
| Ax | NBSP | ? | ? | ? | ¤ | ? | | | § | Ё | ? | ? | ? | ? | SHY | ? | ? |
| Bx | ° | ± | ? | ? | ? | μ | ? | · | ё | № | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Code Page 1174
[edit]Code Page 1174 is another variant created for the Kazakh language, which matches Windows-1251 for the Russian subset of the Cyrillic letters. It differs from KZ-1048 by moving the Cyrillic letter Shha from 8E/9E to 8A/9A.
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
| 8x | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | … | ? | ? | € | ‰ | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 9x | ? | ‘ | ’ | “ | ” | ? | – | — | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | |
| Ax | NBSP | ? | ? | ? | ¤ | ? | | | § | Ё | ? | ? | ? | ? | SHY | ? | ? |
| Bx | ° | ± | ? | ? | ? | μ | ? | · | ё | № | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Latvian variant
[edit]Windows Latvian + Russian is a modification of Windows-1251 to support the Latvian language.
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
| 8x | ū | ? | ? | ō | ? | … | ? | ? | ? | ‰ | ? | ? | ē | ? | ? | ? |
| 9x | ū | ‘ | ’ | “ | ” | ? | – | — | ? | ? | ? | ? | ē | ? | ? | ō |
| Ax | NBSP | ā | ā | ? | ¤ | ? | | | § | Ё | ? | ? | ? | ? | SHY | ? | ˉ |
| Bx | ° | ± | ī | ī | ′ | μ | ? | · | ё | № | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | × |
Finnish variant
[edit]Windows Cyrillic + Finnish is a modification of Windows-1251 that was used by Paratype to cover the Finnish language. This encoding is supported by FontLab Studio 5.[18] This variant is missing the letters ? and ? which are used in loanwords in Finnish and can be replaced by the digraphs SH and ZH.
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
| 8x | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | … | ? | ? | ? | ‰ | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 9x | ? | ‘ | ’ | “ | ” | ? | – | — | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| Ax | NBSP | ? | ? | ó | ¤ | ? | | | § | Ё | ? | ? | ? | ? | SHY | ? | ? |
| Bx | ° | ± | ? | ? | ? | μ | ? | · | ё | № | ? | ? | ó | é | é | ? |
Amiga variant
[edit]| MIME / IANA | Amiga-1251 |
|---|---|
| Alias(es) | Ami1251 |
| Language(s) | English, Russian |
| Classification | extended ASCII |
| Based on | Windows-1251, ISO-8859-1, ISO-8859-15 |
Russian Amiga OS systems used a version of code page 1251 which matches Windows-1251 for the Russian subset of the Cyrillic letters, but otherwise mostly follows ISO-8859-1. This version is known as Amiga-1251,[19] under which name it is registered with the IANA.[20]
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
| 8x | XXX | XXX | BPH | NBH | IND | NEL | SSA | ESA | HTS | HTJ | VTS | PLD | PLU | RI | SS2 | SS3 |
| 9x | DCS | PU1 | PU2 | STS | CCH | MW | SPA | EPA | SOS | XXX | SCI | CSI | ST | OSC | PM | APC |
| Ax | NBSP | ? | ￠ | ￡ | €[a] | ￥ | | | § | Ё | ? | №[b] | ? | ? | SHY | ? | ˉ |
| Bx | ° | ± | 2 | 3 | ′ | μ | ? | · | ё | 1 | o | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
- ^ Matching ISO-8859-15; at a different location than in Windows-1251
- ^ Present in Windows-1251, but in a different location (absent from ISO-8859-1/15)
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Historical trends in the usage of character encodings, January 2024". Retrieved 2025-08-07.
- ^ "Frequently Asked Questions".
- ^ "Distribution of Character Encodings among websites that use .ru". w3techs.com. Retrieved 2025-08-07.
- ^ "Distribution of Character Encodings among websites that use Russian". w3techs.com. Retrieved 2025-08-07.
- ^ "Distribution of Character Encodings among websites that use Russian Federation". w3techs.com. Retrieved 2025-08-07.
- ^ "cp1251(7) - Linux manual page". man7.org. Retrieved 2025-08-07.
- ^ "Code page 1251 information document". Archived from the original on 2025-08-07.
- ^ "CCSID 1251 information document". Archived from the original on 2025-08-07.
- ^ "CCSID 5347 information document". Archived from the original on 2025-08-07.
- ^ Code Page CPGID 01251 (pdf) (PDF), IBM
- ^ Code Page CPGID 01251 (txt), IBM
- ^ International Components for Unicode (ICU), ibm-1251_P100-1995.ucm, 2025-08-07
- ^ International Components for Unicode (ICU), ibm-5347_P100-1998.ucm, 2025-08-07
- ^ "Usage Statistics of Character Encodings for Websites". w3techs.com. Archived from the original on 2025-08-07.
- ^ Steele, Shawn (1998). CP1251 to Unicode table. Unicode Consortium. CP1251.TXT.
- ^ Whistler, Ken (2007). KZ-1048 to Unicode. Unicode Consortium. KZ1048.TXT.
- ^ ibm-1174_X100-2007.ucm, IBM
- ^ "FontLab Studio 5. Classic pro font editor for Mac & Windows".
- ^ a b Malyshev, Michael (2003). "Amiga-1251 to Unicode table". Registration of new charset [Amiga-1251]. IANA.
- ^ "Character Sets". IANA.
Further reading
[edit]- Kornai, Andras; Birnbaum, David J.; da Cruz, Frank; Davis, Bur; Fowler, George; Paine, Richard B.; Paperno, Slava; Simonsen, Keld J.; Thobe, Glenn E.; Vulis, Dimitri; van Wingen, Johan W. (2025-08-07). "CYRILLIC ENCODING FAQ Version 1.3". Retrieved 2025-08-07.
External links
[edit]- Windows 1251 reference chart
- IANA Charset Name Registration
- Unicode mappings of windows 1251 with "best fit"
- Universal Cyrillic decoder, an online program that may help recovering unreadable Cyrillic texts with broken Windows-1251 or other character encodings.
| Early telecommunications | |
|---|---|
| ISO/IEC 8859 |
|
| Bibliographic use | |
| National standards | |
| ISO/IEC 2022 | |
| Mac OS Code pages ("scripts") | |
| DOS code pages | |
| IBM AIX code pages | |
| Windows code pages | |
| EBCDIC code pages | |
| DEC terminals (VTx) | |
| Platform specific |
|
| Unicode / ISO/IEC 10646 | |
| TeX typesetting system | |
| Miscellaneous code pages | |
| Control character | |
| Related topics | |
