Chinese characters are widely used in Japanese, better known as Kanji. In 1982 Japanese government promulgated 1,945 "Kanji in Common use" (常用漢字)and 166 "Kanji for personal names" (人名用漢字), for a total of 2,111 Kanji characters. These are among the 6,349 Kanji characters used in J. I. S. (Japanese Information Standard). The present paper proposes to analyze in some detail the nature of these 2,111 Kanji characters, noting in particular the differences and similarities between them and Chinese characters. Simplified forms of Japanese Kanji, except for a handful of obscure cases, have their locus in classical Chinese texts. Japanese Kanji, then, are largely identical to Chinese characters and, therefore, form an important basis for cultural interchange between the two countries, both in the past and in the future.