Latin Capital Letter AE Æ

The Latin Capital Letter AE character (Æ) is a standard HTML entity defined in the HTML specification. In HTML source code, it can be written using the named entity reference Æ, the decimal numeric character reference Æ, or the hexadecimal numeric reference Æ. The character is assigned Unicode code point U+00C6 in the Universal Character Set.

The capital AE ligature (Æ) is a separate letter in Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic, and appears in Old English texts. It originated as a ligature of A and E but has evolved into an independent letter in Nordic languages. In English, it occasionally appears in archaic spellings and classical references.

Latin extended character entities provide the accented and modified letters required by dozens of European languages. From French accents aigus and graves to German umlauts, Scandinavian rings, and Icelandic thorns, these entities ensure correct rendering of non-ASCII characters within HTML documents. While modern UTF-8 encoded pages can include these characters directly in source code, HTML entities remain valuable for source code clarity and legacy compatibility.

When deciding how to encode the Latin Capital Letter AE character in your HTML documents, the named entity Æ is generally the most readable choice for developers reviewing or maintaining source code. The decimal form Æ and hexadecimal form Æ are equally valid alternatives that work in contexts where named entities may not be supported, or when generating HTML output programmatically from server-side code. All three representations produce identical visual output in every modern web browser.

Use this entity in Danish and Norwegian text (where Æ is a distinct letter), Icelandic, and historical English texts. In modern English, Æ sometimes appears in proper names and academic contexts (encyclopædia, mediæval). For Nordic languages, it is essential and not interchangeable with 'AE'.