What Is the EmojiEmoji
A Japanese word (絵文字) meaning 'picture character' — small graphical symbols used in digital communication to express ideas, emotions, and objects. Stats Dashboard?
Numbers tell stories, and emoji have plenty of numbers worth exploring. The EmojiFYI Stats Dashboard collects and visualizes key facts about the entire UnicodeUnicode
Universal character encoding standard that assigns a unique number to every character across all writing systems and symbol sets, including emoji. emoji set — all 3,953 emojis — in one interactive page. You can see how many emojis exist per category, how the emoji set has grown release by release, what share of emojis support skin tone modifiers, and much more.
Whether you are a developer planning for emoji rendering support, a designer curious about the breadth of available symbols, or simply an emoji enthusiast who wants to understand the landscape, the Stats Dashboard turns raw emoji data into readable charts and numbers.
Navigating the Dashboard
Overview Cards
At the top of the dashboard, a row of summary cards gives you instant headline figures:
| Card | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Total Emojis | 3,953 fully-qualified Unicode emojis |
| Categories | 10 top-level Unicode categories |
| Emoji Versions | 17 releases (Emoji 1.0 through 17.0) |
| Languages Supported | 15 languages for emoji names and keywords |
| Emojis with Skin Tones | Count of emojis that accept modifier sequences |
| ZWJZero Width Joiner (ZWJ) An invisible Unicode character (U+200D) used to join multiple emoji into a single composite emoji, such as combining people and objects into profession emoji. Sequences |
Count of multi-code-point joined sequences |
These cards update if new emoji data is added to EmojiFYI, so they always reflect the current dataset.
Emojis by Category
The first major chart breaks down the full emoji set by Unicode category. The ten categories are:
- 😀 Smileys & Emotion
- 🧑 People & Body
- 🐶 Animals & Nature
- 🍕 Food & Drink
- 🌍 Travel & Places
- ⚽ Activities
- 💡 Objects
- 💯 Symbols
- 🚩 Flags
- 🔧 Component
The chart makes it immediately clear that Symbols and People & Body are among the largest categories, while Components (skin tone modifiers and other building blocks) form the smallest group. Flags occupy a unique middle ground — there are over 250 of them, covering every ISO 3166-1 country code plus a handful of subdivision flags like 🏴 England.
Clicking a category name in the chart takes you to that category's full listing page, where you can browse every emoji in it.
Growth by Emoji VersionEmoji Version
The release version in which an emoji was first introduced, following an annual release cadence since Emoji 4.0 (2016).
The version history chart is one of the most fascinating views on the dashboard. It shows how many new emojis were added in each Unicode Emoji release, from Emoji 1.0 in 2015 through the current version.
A few highlights the chart makes visible at a glance:
- Emoji 1.0 (2015) launched with the largest initial batch — over 1,200 emojis, covering most of the core set.
- Emoji 4.0 (2016) was notable for introducing the full matrix of skin tone modifierSkin Tone Modifier
Five Unicode modifier characters based on the Fitzpatrick scale that change the skin color of human emoji (U+1F3FB to U+1F3FF). sequences, which added hundreds of entries. - Emoji 11.0 (2018) was the first major expansion under the new annual release cadence and added 157 new emojis including 🥰, 🧁, and 🦔.
- Emoji 15.1 (2023) introduced family ZWJ sequences with mixed skin tones, dramatically increasing the sequence count.
Hover over any bar or data point to see the exact count for that version, and click through to the Emoji Versions page for the full changelog.
Emoji Types Breakdown
Not every entry in the emoji set is a simple single character. The types chart shows the composition of the full dataset:
| Type | Approximate Count | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Basic / Single | ~1,400 | One code pointCode Point A unique numerical value assigned to each character in the Unicode standard, written in the format U+XXXX (e.g., U+1F600 for 😀)., one emoji |
| Skin Tone Sequences | ~1,300 | Base emoji + Fitzpatrick modifier |
| ZWJ Sequences | ~600 | Multiple emojis joined by U+200D |
| Flag Sequences | ~258 | Regional indicatorRegional Indicator (RI) Paired Unicode letters (U+1F1E6 to U+1F1FF) that form country flag emoji when combined according to ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes. pairs or tag sequences |
| Keycap Sequences | 12 | Digit/symbol + FE0F + U+20E3 |
| Components | ~10 | Modifiers used as building blocks |
This breakdown explains why emoji counts vary depending on how they are counted. A developer counting "emojis" might get different numbers depending on whether they count code points, grapheme clusters, or fully-qualified sequences. The Stats Dashboard uses the fully-qualified count — the same as Unicode's emoji-test.txtemoji-test.txt.
The official Unicode file listing all emoji sequences with their qualification status, code points, and CLDR short names.
Platform Image Coverage
The platform coverage section shows how many emojis have vendor images available on EmojiFYI for each major platform:
- 🍎 Apple
- 📱 Samsung
- 🪟 Microsoft
- 🕊️ X (Twitter/Twemoji)
- 💬 WhatsApp / Meta
Not every platform has rendered images for every Unicode emoji, particularly for the most recently added sequences. The coverage chart helps you see which platforms trail behind on image support for newer emojis — useful context when choosing which emoji to use across a mixed-platform audience.
For side-by-side rendering, use the Compare Tool after checking coverage stats here.
Skin Tone Coverage
The skin tone section shows which emoji categories have the broadest modifier support. People & Body emojis have near-complete skin tone coverage, while Animals & Nature and Objects have none — those emoji are not person-based, so modifiers do not apply.
The chart breaks down: - Total emojis that accept skin tone modifiers - Number of skin tone variants per supported base - Which Unicode version each modifier batch was introduced in
This is especially useful for developers building inclusive applications who want to ensure they handle all skin tone sequences in their emoji input handling and storage.
Using Stats as a Research Starting Point
The dashboard is designed to spark curiosity and point you toward deeper exploration. Here are a few ways to use it:
Discover Under-Explored Categories
If the chart shows a category you rarely use — say, Activities ⚽ or Flags 🚩 — click through to browse every emoji in it. You might find emojis you did not know existed: 🪃 Boomerang, 🏋️ Person Lifting Weights, or 🎯 Bullseye are all easy to overlook.
Understand Version Support Before Using New Emojis
Before using a freshly added emoji (from Emoji 15.0 or 16.0, for example), check how many platforms have rendered it yet. If platform image coverage is low, your audience may see a missing glyph or a plain square instead of the intended emoji.
Benchmark Rendering Completeness
For developers building apps that display user-supplied emoji, the type breakdown informs test planning. If your app only tests single-code-point emojis, you are missing the ~1,300 skin tone sequences, ~600 ZWJ sequences, and all the flag sequences. The Stats Dashboard quantifies exactly what you need to cover.
Refreshing and Exporting Data
The dashboard reflects the current state of EmojiFYI's database. When new Unicode emoji versions are adopted, the numbers update automatically. For raw data access — say, to run your own analysis — the EmojiFYI API provides JSON endpoints for every emoji, category, and version in the dataset.
Explore More on EmojiFYI
After spending time with the Stats Dashboard, dig deeper with these related tools:
- Compare Tool — see how specific emojis render across the platforms highlighted in the stats
- Sequence Analyzer — examine the internal structure of ZWJ sequences and skin tone variants counted in the dashboard
- Emoji Keyboard — browse by category, which maps directly to the categories shown in the stats charts
- EmojiFYI API — access the raw data behind the dashboard programmatically