Why Han Xin exists
Han Xin code was developed by the Article Numbering Center of China to store Chinese text compactly. Where a QR code handles Chinese characters mainly through byte mode or ECI, Han Xin has encoding modes built for Chinese character sets, which saves space for Chinese-language content.
It was first published as a Chinese national standard and later as the international standard ISO/IEC 20830 in 2021.
Structure
A Han Xin symbol has finder patterns in all four corners, which distinguishes it at a glance from the three-corner layout of QR. It comes in 84 versions, from 23×23 up to 189×189 modules, with four error correction levels. The largest symbols hold several thousand digits.
Support
Han Xin is used mostly within China in logistics, government and industry. Support in scanners outside China is limited, and many consumer camera apps do not read it, so check the readers you plan to use.