里
lǐ · HSK 1
inside
🏘️ 里 = 田 (field) + 土 (earth); a settled village, the inside of one's home turf
Originally a unit of village/neighborhood, so 里 carries the sense of inner area or hometown. Modern Mandarin reuses it for inside (家里 = at home, in the family) and as a unit of distance.
里 — 田 (field) + 土 (earth)
Originally a pictograph combining 田 (field) and 土 (earth), depicting cultivated land where people lived. It came to mean 'village' or 'hometown,' and by extension a unit of distance (about 500 meters). The 'inside' meaning is borrowed; that sense was traditionally written 裏 or 裡.