U+00BA · Latin-1 Supplement

Masculine Ordinal Indicator º

The masculine ordinal indicator is a small raised, sometimes underlined, letter o used in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Galician for masculine ordinal numbers, such as 1º for 'primero'. It also appears in the abbreviation 'nº' for número. It looks almost identical to the degree sign, which is why the two are frequently swapped by mistake.

WindowsAlt 167 / 0186

MacOption + 0

UnicodeU+00BA

HTMLº

ºU+00BA

Character codes

Unicode code point	`U+00BA`
Decimal	`186`
HTML named entity	`º`
HTML (hex)	`º`
HTML (decimal)	`º`
CSS	`\00BA`
JavaScript	`\u00BA`
Python	`\u00BA`
UTF-8 bytes	`C2 BA`
UTF-16	`00BA`
URL-encoded	`%C2%BA`

Character details

Official name	MASCULINE ORDINAL INDICATOR
Unicode block	Latin-1 Supplement
General category	Other Letter (Lo)
SymbolHero category	Accented Letters
Decomposition	`<super> U+006F`
Emoji	No

How to type º

Windows

Hold Alt and type 167 on the numeric keypad (Num Lock on), then release Alt. Alt 167 uses the code page 437.
Hold Alt and type 0186 on the numeric keypad (Num Lock on), then release Alt. Alt 0186 uses the Windows-1252 code page.
In Microsoft Word or Outlook: type 00BA then press Alt + X.
Open Character Map (search “Character Map” in Start), tick “Advanced view”, search for “masculine ordinal indicator”, then Select and Copy.

Mac

Press Option + 0 (US English keyboard layout).
Press Control + Command + Space to open the Character Viewer, search “masculine ordinal indicator”, and double-click the result.
With the Unicode Hex Input keyboard enabled (System Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources), hold Option and type 00BA.

iPhone & Android

Tap Copy at the top of this page, then long-press where you want it and choose Paste.

Docs & web

Google Docs: Insert → Special characters, then search “masculine ordinal indicator” or enter U+00BA.
HTML: º or º
Excel / Google Sheets: =UNICHAR(186)

Examples

1º piso
nº 25
Rua Augusta, 3º andar
2º lugar

Good to know

Don’t mix it up: Often confused with the degree sign ° (U+00B0), which is a perfect circle; º is an oval letter o and may carry an underline.

Tip: Never use º for temperatures or angles; screen readers and search engines treat it as a letter, not a degree.

Display: the character itself is always the same code point, but its shape comes from the font on the device showing it. If you see an empty box, the font lacks this glyph—the text is still correct.