In Mandarin Chinese, 国 (Pinyin: guó 🔊) means “country” or “nation”.
But how on earth jade 玉 in an enclosure 囗 came to signify “country”? In fact 国 is a simplified form of 國, and this latter character is a combination of 囗 and 或. Although 玉 is not a simplified form of 或 in its contemporary use (huó), 或 used to be an original form of 域, “range” or “territory”, and was pronounced just like 玉 (yù).
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In Mandarin Chinese, 囗 (Pinyin: wéi 🔊) means “(a fenced) enclosure”.
As a radical, 囗 is also used to signify “enclosure”. You can put it around some other hanzi to get a new meaning. It should not be confused with similar character 口 (kǒu) “mouth” which you can put inside some other character. For example, if you put 口 inside 囗, you’ll get 回 (huí).
In Mandarin Chinese, 回 (Pinyin: huí 🔊) means “to return”, “to turn around”, “to reply”, or “to decline”.
There is a variety of historical forms of this character, including concentric circles and spiral shapes. For handwriting purposes, I think it is still easier to draw a spiral than a pair of concentric squares.
