ASCII 179
Superscript Three (³)
Latin-1 Supplement
Latin-1 character.
Common uses & context
Decimal 179 (0xB3) is Superscript Three, part of the Latin-1 Supplement (128–255). Latin-1 character. It renders as '³' and its binary byte is 10110011.
This is where single-byte ASCII ends and encoding matters. In Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1) '³' is the single byte 0xB3. In UTF-8 — today's default for the web — the same character is the multi-byte sequence 0xC2 0xB3. Treating a Latin-1 byte as UTF-8 (or vice versa) is the usual reason accented letters and symbols turn into mojibake like é or €. The Unicode code point is U+00B3, and in HTML you can write it as ³ or ³.
All encodings at a glance
| Decimal | 179 |
| Hexadecimal | 0xB3 |
| Octal | 0263 |
| Binary | 10110011 |
| HTML numeric entity | ³ |
| HTML named entity | ³ |
| URL encoding | %B3 |
| UTF-8 bytes | 0xC2 0xB3 |
Code snippets
JavaScript
String.fromCharCode(179); // "³"
179.toString(16); // "b3"Python
chr(179) # control char ³
ord(chr(179)) # 179
hex(179) # '0xb3'HTML
³ <!-- named entity -->
³ <!-- numeric entity -->Programming notes
- ▸Single byte 0xB3 in Latin-1, but the multi-byte sequence 0xC2 0xB3 in UTF-8 — never assume one byte per character above code 127.
- ▸Unicode code point U+00B3; HTML entity ³.
- ▸If '³' shows as mojibake, the encoding declared and the encoding used disagree — align both on UTF-8.
Unicode & UTF-8 note
In Unicode this is U+00B3. In UTF-8 it encodes to the byte sequence 0xC2 0xB3. In legacy Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1) it is a single byte 0xB3, which is why Latin-1 files often appear as mojibake when interpreted as UTF-8.
Frequently asked questions
What character is ASCII code 179?
ASCII code 179 is the character '³' (Superscript Three). In hexadecimal it is 0xB3, in octal 0263, and in binary 10110011.
What is 0xB3 in ASCII?
Hexadecimal 0xB3 equals decimal 179, which is the character '³' (Superscript Three). To convert hex to ASCII yourself, read the two hex digits as a base-16 number (0xB3 = 179) and look up that code point.
How do I write the character with code 179 in code?
In JavaScript use String.fromCharCode(179); in Python use chr(179); in HTML use the numeric entity ³ or the named entity ³. In a URL it is percent-encoded as %B3, and in UTF-8 it is stored as the byte sequence 0xC2 0xB3.
Is '³' part of standard ASCII?
No. Standard ASCII covers codes 0–127 only. '³' is code 179, part of the Latin-1 Supplement (128–255, sometimes called "extended ASCII"). It is a single byte 0xB3 in Latin-1 but a multi-byte sequence (0xC2 0xB3) in UTF-8.