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Classifying Kanji is controversial. The first classification attempt was done by Xu Shen in his work "Shuōwén Jiězì 說文解字", creating the 六書りくしょ. The 六書 is the categorization of characters by 6 principles. There is still great debate on them since his work was so broad.

 The 六書

• Principle I:  Principle I refers to 象形文字. These characters are pictograms that resemble what they mean. It is generally the case that they were more similar to what they represented in the beginning, but due to stylistic alterations and simplifications, these sorts of characters tend to no longer apparently resemble what they stand for.
  Ex. 日 (sun/day), 月 (moon/month), 山 (mountain), 鳥 (bird), 木 (tree), 魚 (fish), 龍 (dragon)
• Principle II: Principle II refers to 指示文字. These characters are compound pictograms, more often referred to as ideograms.  　
  Ex. 一 (one), 二 (two), 三 (three), 上 (above), 下 (below)
• Principle III: Principle III refers to 会意文字. These characters are compound ideograms, more complex than those characters classified under Principle II.
  Ex. 休 (rest), 森 (forest/grove), 好 (like), 明 (bright), 信 (believe). 
• Principle IV: Principle IV refers to 形成文字. About 90% of characters are in this type. They are composed generally of two parts: one of a limited set of character (the semantic indicator, often graphically simplified) which suggests the general meaning of the compound character, and another character (the phonetic indicator) whose pronunciation suggests the pronunciation of the compound character.
  Ex. 河 (river), 湖 (lake), 流 (flow), 沖 (offing), 江 (inlet). In these characters, the left side provides meaning and the right side provides sound. 
• Principle V: Principle V refers to 転注文字. These are 漢字 with common origin that have evolved differently.
  Ex. 老 (Old) & 考 (Thought)
• Principle VI: Principle VI refers to 仮借文字. These rebus characters cover cases where an existing character is used to represent an unrelated word with similar or identical pronunciation
  Ex. 自 originally meant "nose" instead of "oneself". The meaning of nose has been given to 鼻. Ex. 萬 is from a pictogram of a scorpion, but through phonetic association with the word for 10,000, it lost its meaning of scorpion.  
  Ex. 北 = "north" but meant "back", which is now 背.
  Ex. 四 originally meant tonsils, but this meaning has been given up to 泗 to mean "sniffle". The original character for four, 亖, is no longer used as an effect. 

    The usage of 部首 is often referred to as "偏旁冠脚（へんぼうかんきゃく）". This method relies on the fact that there is generally 1 or more different radicals in a character and 4 main locations where the "true" radical may be located. As 90% of all characters are 形声文字, the "true" radical should almost always be apparent. Due to simplification, though, some characters are impossible to categorize appropriately. When such cases exist, you must rely on your knowledge of 旧字体. However, most 新字体 are easily assigned a 部首.

     The number of 部首 has been a controversial issue. As the characters evolved, so did their parts. As it is not as if this evolution caused the creation of completely different radicals, we often classify variants of the same thing as a single 部首. It is here where the classification of 部首 is different in China and Japan. In Japan, there is a somewhat agreement classification with 214 distinct 部首.

     In listing radicals, there are two accepted steps: counting the strokes of the radical and figuring out the 音読み and listing in a 五十音図 style ordering. For example, a character that has 3 strokes whose radical has an 音読み with the first letter K would be before a character with that same amount of strokes but with the first letter T. Voiced consonants, in dictionaries, are shown after their non-voiced counterparts with the only issue being h. In this case, h is first, b is second, and p is last. When searching for words or characters, you must understand that the small y かな are treated as full characters.

     There are some radicals whose strokes may be counted differently depending on one's viewpoint and choice of font. For example, the 部首 瓜,  阝, 鬼, and 臣 are considered to have 5, 3, 10, and 7 strokes in Japan respectively but are considered to have 6, 2, 9, and 6 in China respectively. To find the 部首 of a character, a system of different positions has been created to pinpoint where it is normally located.

           THE STANDARD PATTERNS

•  偏: The 部首 is on the left. For example, 略's 部首 is 田 and its phonetic is 各.
•  旁： The 部首 is on the right. For example, 艶's phonetic is 豊 and its 部首 is 色.
•  冠： The 部首 is on the top. For example, 歩's 部首 is 止 and its phonetic is 少.
•  脚： The 部首 is on the bottom. For example, 志's phonetic is 士 and its 部首 is 心.

•  垂：The 部首 is on the top and side of a character. For example, 房's 部首 is 戸 and its phonetic is 方.  
•  繞：The 部首 is on the side on the bottom of a character. For example, 起's 部首 is 走 and its phonetic is 己. 
•  構：The 部首 surrounds the phonetic. For example, 国's 部首 is 口and its phonetic is 玉. 

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        脚の変形: Irregularities of the Ashi pattern.

• ： In this irregularity, the 部首 is on the top and the bottom. For example, 亘's radical is 一 on the top and the bottom and the phonetic is 日.
• ： In this irregularity, the 部首 is in the middle. For example, 昼's phonetic is 尺 and its 部首 is 日and 一.

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        構の変形: Irregularities of the 構 pattern.

• ： In this irregularity, the 部首 surrounds the phonetic with a bottom opening. For example, 間's 部首 is 門 and its phonetic is 日.
• ： In this irregularity, the 部首 surrounds the phonetic with a top opening. For example, 凶's radical is 凵 and its phonetic is メ.
• ： In this irregularity, the 部首 surrounds the phonetic with an opening on the right side. For example, 医's radical is 匚 and its phonetic is 矢.
• ： In this irregularity, the 部首 is only on the top and the right side. For example, 式's radical is 弋 and its phonetic is 工.
• ： In this irregularity, the 部首 surrounds the phonetic only on the sides. For example, 街's radical is 行 and its phonetic is 圭.

THE 214 BUSHU ACCORDING TO THE 康熙（こうき）字典

Chart Note: Some variants have been omitted due to the unavailability of the respectful glyphs.

Name Note: If you learn any of the names, you should focus on the popular ones.