Why does ('1'+'1') output 98 in Java?

In java, every character literal is associated with an ASCII value which is an Integer.

You can find all the ASCII values here

'1' maps to ASCII value of 49 (int type).
thus '1' + '1' becomes 49 + 49 which is an integer 98.

If you cast this value to char type as shown below, it will print ASCII value of 98 which is b

System.out.println( (char) ('1'+'1') );

If you are aiming at concatenating 2 chars (meaning, you expect "11" from your example), consider converting them to string first. Either by using double quotes, "1" + "1" or as mentioned here .

'1' is a char literal, and the + operator between two chars returns an int. The character '1''s unicode value is 49, so when you add two of them you get 98.

'1' denotes a character and evaluates to the corresponding ASCII value of the character, which is 49 for 1. Adding two of them gives 98.