King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “pastoral”

乡间
xiāng jiān
Traditional: 鄉間
in the country; rural; pastoral

The closest CC-CEDICT match for pastoral is 乡间 (xiāng jiān), defined as: in the country; rural; pastoral.

Before using these characters for a tattoo, check them with a native speaker. Dictionary words often have several meanings, and the right choice depends on context.

Characters and stroke order

乡 xiāng
country, village; rural
radical 52 ⼳ · 3 strokes
间 jiān
between, among; midpoint; space, place, locality
radical 169 ⾨ · 7 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “pastoral”

WordPinyinMeaning
牧人mù rénshepherd; pastor
牧歌mù gēshepherd's song; pastoral

Related words

Other words that share a character with 乡间.

WordPinyinMeaning
乡村 (鄉村)xiāng cūnrustic; village
家乡 (家鄉)jiā xiānghometown; native place
城乡 (城鄉)chéng xiāngcity and countryside
乡镇 (鄉鎮)xiāng zhèntownships and towns (collective term for the two principal township-level administrative divisions); small towns (general sense)
故乡 (故鄉)gù xiānghome; homeland
乡下 (鄉下)xiāng xiacountryside; rural area
时间 (時間)shí jiān(concept of) time; (duration of) time
之间 (之間)zhī jiān(after a noun) between; among; amid; (used after certain bisyllabic words to form expressions indicating a short period of time, e.g. 弹指之间 (

See also: Japanese symbol for “pastoral”.

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3); Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License (graphics.txt); LGPL-3.0-or-later (dictionary.txt)); wordfreq (CC BY-SA 4.0 (data)). Retrieved 2026-10-22.