A coded representation for a single character that consists of a sequence of two 16-bit code units, in which the first value of the pair is a high-surrogate code unit in the range U+D800 through U+DBFF and the second value is a low-surrogate code unit in the range U+DC00 through U+DFFF. Surrogate pairs provide an extension mechanism for encoding 917 476 characters without requiring the use of 32-bit characters.