Pointing Up and Right: A Guide to the ↗ (North East Arrow) Symbol
The ↗ (North East Arrow) symbol represents a direction pointing simultaneously up and to the right. In general contexts, it indicates upward movement, growth, progress, or a literal geographic direction toward the northeast. You will frequently see this diagonal arrow used in charts to show increasing metrics, on maps for navigation, and in user interfaces to represent external links.
Originally standardized to help early computers render basic directional wayfinding, the North East Arrow was added to the Unicode Standard in 1993. It sits at the code point U+2197 and belongs to the Arrows block, a dedicated section in Unicode housing over a hundred different arrow variations. While initially designed for technical and academic texts, its universal adoption on modern operating systems has made it a staple in everyday digital communication.
This simple directional line does heavy lifting across multiple disciplines. In mathematics and science, ↗ is often used to denote an increasing function, an upward trend in data graphs, or a vector pointing in a specific geometric plane. On social media and stock trading forums, users drop it into posts to hype up rising crypto prices, celebrate positive analytics, or signify an upward trend in popular culture. In programming and web typography, UI designers frequently place the ↗ symbol next to a URL to visually signal that clicking the link will open a new tab or navigate the user to an external website.
Typing the ↗ symbol requires different methods depending on your device. On Windows, you can use the Alt code by holding the Alt key and typing 8599 on your numeric keypad. Mac users can open the Character Viewer by pressing Control + Command + Space and searching for "North East Arrow". On smartphones, the easiest method is to search for "arrow" in your native emoji keyboard, where the emoji variant of ↗ is readily available. You can also rely on the classic copy-and-paste method from any search engine.
The North East Arrow is part of a much larger family of directional symbols. It contrasts directly with its downward-facing counterpart, the South West Arrow (↙), which signifies decline or a return to a previous state. Other close relatives include the Upwards Arrow (↑) and the Rightwards Arrow (→), which split its diagonal trajectory into strict vertical or horizontal paths. Unlike the Heavy North East Arrow (➚), which uses a thicker stroke for bold emphasis, the standard ↗ maintains a clean, minimalist profile perfect for inline text.