The kanji 江 primarily represents "river" or "bay." It signifies a body of water, particularly a large river or a bay where a river flows into a larger body of water like the sea. The character evokes images of flowing water and the meeting of land and sea.

・On-yomi (音読み): コウ (kō) ・Kun-yomi (訓読み): え (e)

⚫︎長江 Translation: Yangtze River (literally "Long River") ⚫︎江戸 Translation: Edo (former name of Tokyo), meaning "bay entrance" or "estuary." ⚫︎江水 Translation: River water

The kanji 江 is a phono-semantic compound (形声文字). It combines the radical 氵 (サンズイ, water) on the left side, indicating the meaning, with the phonetic component 工 (meaning "work" or "labor" or "artisan"). The presence of 工 gives a clue to the pronunciation. Thus, the formation suggests a connection between the element of water (氵) and the idea represented by the sound (工). The character evolved over time, starting from pictographic representations of rivers.