Draft:Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants

The Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants is a large database of Chinese character forms compiled by the Republic of China's Ministry of Education, first unveiled in June 2000.

Background
It is currently the largest Chinese dictionary. Its sixth edition was released in November 2017. The database organizes glyphs found in "calligraphy documents" dating from ancient times through to the present, assigning variants created by distinct writing methods but sharing pronunciation and meaning to standard forms. A total of 106,330 characters are counted, including:


 * 29,921 standard characters
 * 4,808 everyday characters
 * 6,329 uncommon characters
 * 18,319 rare characters
 * 465 novel characters
 * 74,407 variant characters
 * 2,002 characters of unclear status

The Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants contains a far greater number of characters than the Hanyu Da Zidian (60,370 characters) and the Zhonghua Zihai (85,568 words), ultimately surpassing the Hanzihai 's total of 102,447 characters.