Total different symbols used in hexadecimal number system are ________

The hexadecimal number system is a base-16 positional numeral system. This means it uses exactly 16 distinct symbols to represent values. These symbols include the ten decimal digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) and the first six letters of the alphabet (A, B, C, D, E, F) to represent values 10 through 15. Therefore, the total count of unique symbols is 16. Option A (8) refers to the octal system, which uses digits 0-7. Option B (4) is incorrect as no standard base-4 system uses this many symbols in common contexts, and Option D (2) refers to the binary system using only 0 and 1. Since hexadecimal is defined by its base of 16, Option C is the only correct choice.