Erlang has no string type. Most strings are a list of integers (any size), you can put Unicode code points there if you want, or integers less than 255 if you prefer. There is also a binary/bitstring type which is an array of bits (if a multiple of 8, it's a binary). You can put whatever you want in a binary, it's binary.

If you'd like things encoded in some way, that's up to you, there is no type to help you (there is a Unicode module which can help convert between encodings)