yuanvsYunnanWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: yuan is a noun, Yunnan is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“yuan” is a noun and “Yunnan” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#19,717
“yuan” frequency rank
#43,736
“Yunnan” frequency rank
63453
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature yuan Yunnan
Definition Devise officielle de la Chine. Un yuan vaut 10 jiaos et 100 fens. Code ISO 4217 : CNY. Province du sud-ouest de la Chine où habitent diverses ethnies et que traversent les fleuves importants comme le Yangtsé, le fleuve Rouge et le Mékong.

Letter map: yuan vs Yunnan

Shared letters muted; letters that set yuan and Yunnan apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

4 ch
yuan
6 ch
Yunnan

Role in the sentence - yuan and Yunnan

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: yuan is anoun and Yunnananame. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63453, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

yuan is recorded at frequency rank #19,717, classified as anoun, pronounced \jɥan\. Yunnan is at rank #43,736, tagged as aname.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 63453, this pair ranks #81,882 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of yuan vs Yunnan

Shared letters: anuy. Private to "yuan": -. Private to "Yunnan": -.

"yuan" · 4 letters · shape VVVC  ·  "Yunnan" · 6 letters · shape VVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • yuanuyan · yaun · yuann · yuna · yyuan
  • Yunnanuynnan · ynunan · yunan · yunann · yunnann · yunnna · yyunnan

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "yuan" and "Yunnan" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "yuan" is a noun and "Yunnan" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "yuan" or "Yunnan" show up more?
"yuan" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,717 in our French list, against #43,736 for "Yunnan". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "yuan" vs "Yunnan" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "yuan" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Yunnan" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #81,882 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "yuan" and "Yunnan" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "yuan vs yum". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #81,882 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list