Apple has updated its collection of emojis with 52 new icons, including a zombie, sandwich, elf and a woman wearing a headscarf.

The company unveiled its new emojis yesterday to coincide with World Emoji Day. The designs will be coming to Apple's iOS, macOS and watchOS later this year.

As per Apple's commitment to "reflect the diversity of people everywhere" through its emoji selection, a woman wearing a hijab is now available, along with someone breastfeeding.

Other new icons range from food items such as a sandwich and a coconut, to mythical creatures including an elf and a zombie.

The animal offering has also been updated with a tyrannosaurus rex and a zebra, while the standard smiley emojis now feature an exploding head and vomiting option.

New emojis are initially decided by the Unicode Consortium, whose members include Apple, Adobe, Facebook, Google, IBM, Netflix, Huawei and Microsoft.

Unicode dictates what the character should be and what it should represent, but the members then decide what the design looks like for each of their operating systems.

Apple's last update, in 2016, saw the company release 100 new emojis, including a rainbow flag, single-parent families, and female athletes, police officers and construction workers.

It also swapped its emoji of a revolver for a brightly coloured water pistol in what appeared to be a show of opposition to gun violence, after a group called New Yorkers Against Gun Violence began campaigning for Apple to get rid of it.

During its campaign, the group launched a site named Disarm the iPhone and sent an open letter to remove the firearm emoji "as a symbolic gesture to limit gun accessibility".

Emojis originated on Japanese mobile phones in the late 1990s but have become increasingly used since becoming a feature on Apple's iPhone.

Last year, New York's Museum of Modern Art announced the addition of the original 176 emoji set to its collection of "humble masterpieces".