In the field of handwritten character recognition, image zoning is a widespread technique for feature extraction since it is rightly considered to be able to cope with handwritten pattern variability. As a matter of fact, the problem of zoning design has attracted many researchers who have proposed several image-zoning topologies, according to static and dynamic strategies. Unfortunately, little attention has been paid so far to the role of feature-zone membership functions that define the way in which a feature influences different zones of the zoning method. The result is that the membership functions defined to date follow nonadaptive, global approaches that are unable to model local information on feature distributions. In this paper, a new class of zone-based membership functions with adaptive capabilities is introduced and its effectiveness is shown. The basic idea is to select, for each zone of the zoning method, the membership function best suited to exploit the characteristics of the feature distribution of that zone. In addition, a genetic algorithm is proposed to determine-in a unique process-the most favorable membership functions along with the optimal zoning topology, described by Voronoi tessellation. The experimental tests show the superiority of the new technique with respect to traditional zoning methods.