String in Haskell is a type synonym for `List Char` (or `List<Char>`). The question of 'primitives' in Haskell is tricky, as usually you don't deal with primiti

String in Haskell is a type synonym for `List Char` (or `List<Char>`). The question of 'primitives' in Haskell is tricky, as usually you don't deal with primitives at all, although this depends on what you mean by that word: > Primitive (unboxed) types cannot be defined in Haskell, and are therefore built into the language and compiler. Primitive types are always unlifted; that is, a value of a primitive type cannot be bottom. We use the convention (but it is only a convention) that primitive types, values, and operations have a # suffix (see Section 7.3.2, “The magic hash”). For some primitive types we have special syntax for literals, also described in the same section. So with respect to 'primitives', Strings are not less special in Haskell-land than, say, Integers (which are arbitrary-size and assignable as literals). Anyway, Strings as Lists of Chars perform poorly both memory-wise and speed-wise, which is why the linked-list implementation is generally considered a mistake.