The Indian numbering system is used in all

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...

n countries (

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Maldives Maldives (, ; dv, ދިވެހިރާއްޖެ, translit=Dhivehi Raajje, ), officially the Republic of Maldives ( dv, ދިވެހިރާއްޖޭގެ ޖުމްހޫރިއްޔާ, translit=Dhivehi Raajjeyge Jumhooriyyaa, label=none, ), is an archipelag ...

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

and

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

) to express large numbers. The terms ''

lakh A lakh (; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian 2,2,3 convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000. For ex ...

'' or 1,00,000 (one hundred thousand, written as ''100,000'' outside India) and ''

crore A crore (; abbreviated cr) denotes ten million (10,000,000 or 107 in scientific notation) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. It is written as 1,00,00,000 with the local 2,2,3 style of digit group separators (one lakh is e ...

'' or 1,00,00,000 (ten million written as ''10,000,000'' outside India) are the most commonly used terms in

Indian English Indian English (IE) is a group of English dialects spoken in the republic of India and among the Indian diaspora. English is used by the Indian government for communication, along with Hindi, as enshrined in the Constitution of India. E ...

to express large numbers in the system, while

Pakistani English Pakistani English (also known as Paklish or Pinglish) is the group of English language varieties spoken and written in Pakistan. It was first so recognised and designated in the 1970s and 1980s. Pakistani English (PE), similar and related to ...

groups the numbers in international format (10,000,000) but still using the same terms as India.

The Indian system

The Indian numbering system corresponds to the Western system for the zeroth through fourth powers of ten: one (10⁰), ten (10¹), one hundred (10²), one thousand (10³), and ten thousand (10⁴). For higher powers of ten, the names no longer correspond. In the Indian system, the next powers of ten are called one lakh, ten lakh, one crore, ten crore, one arab (or one hundred crore), and so on; there are new words for every second power of ten (10^{5 + 2n}): ''lakh'' (10⁵), ''crore'' (10⁷), ''arab'' (10⁹), ''kharab'' (10¹¹), etc. In the Western system, the next powers of ten are called one hundred thousand, one million, ten million, one hundred million, one billion (

short scale The long and short scales are two of several naming systems for integer power of 10, powers of ten which use some of the same terms for different magnitudes. For whole numbers smaller than 1,000,000,000 (109), such as one thousand or one m ...

)/one thousand million (

long scale The long and short scales are two of several naming systems for integer powers of ten which use some of the same terms for different magnitudes. For whole numbers smaller than 1,000,000,000 (109), such as one thousand or one million, the ...

), and so on; in the

, there are new words for every third power of ten (10³ⁿ): ''million'' (10⁶), ''billion'' (10⁹), ''trillion'' (10¹²), etc. Written numbers differ in the placement of commas, grouping digits into powers of one hundred (10²) in the Indian system (except for the first thousand), and into powers of one thousand (10³) in the Western system. The Indian and most English systems both use the

decimal point A decimal separator is a symbol used to separate the integer part from the fractional part of a number written in decimal form (e.g., "." in 12.45). Different countries officially designate different symbols for use as the separator. The choi ...

and the comma digit-separator, while some other languages and countries using the Western numbering system use the

decimal comma A decimal separator is a symbol used to separate the integer part from the fractional part of a number written in decimal form (e.g., "." in 12.45). Different countries officially designate different symbols for use as the separator. The cho ...

and the

thin space In typography, a thin space is a space character whose width is usually or of an em. It is used to add a narrow space, such as between nested quotation marks or to separate glyphs that interfere with one another. It is not as narrow as the hair ...

or point to group digits. There are terms for numbers larger than 1 crore as well, but these are not commonly used. These include 1 ''arab'' (equal to 100 crore or 1 billion (

)), 1 ''kharab'' (equal to 100 arab or 100 billion (

)), 1 ''nil'' (sometimes

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or ...

as ''neel''; equal to 100 kharab or 10 trillion), 1 ''padma'' (equal to 100 nil or 1 quadrillion), 1 ''shankh'' (equal to 100 padma or 100 quadrillion), and 1 ''mahashankh'' (equal to 100 shankh or 10 quintillion). In common parlance, the thousand, lakh, and crore terminology (though inconsistent) repeats for larger numbers: thus 1,000,000,000,000 (one

trillion ''Trillion'' is a number with two distinct definitions: * 1,000,000,000,000, i.e. one million million, or (ten to the twelfth power), as defined on the short scale. This is now the meaning in both American and British English. * 1,000,000,000,0 ...

) becomes 1 ''lakh crore'', written as 10,00,00,00,00,000.

Examples

* lakh: 150,000

rupees Rupee is the common name for the currencies of India, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Seychelles, and Sri Lanka, and of former currencies of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (as the Gulf rupee), British East Africa, B ...

in India is referred to as "1.5 lakh rupees", which is written as 1,50,000 rupees; * crore: 30,000,000 (thirty million) rupees is referred to as "3 crore rupees", which is written as 3,00,00,000 rupees with commas at the

thousand 1000 or one thousand is the natural number following 999 and preceding 1001. In most English-speaking countries, it can be written with or without a comma or sometimes a period separating the thousands digit: 1,000. A group of one thousand th ...

, ''lakh'', and ''crore'' places.

Use of separators

The Indian numbering system uses separators differently from the international norm. Instead of grouping digits by threes as in the international system, the Indian numbering system groups the rightmost three digits together (until the hundreds place), and thereafter groups by sets of two digits. One trillion would thus be written as 10,00,00,00,00,000 or 10 kharab (or one lakh crore). This makes the number convenient to read using the system's terminology. For example: This accords with the Indian numbering system, which has units for thousands, hundreds of thousands, tens of millions, etc.

Names of numbers

The table below follows the

usage of one billion being one thousand million. In

and

, following former British usage, the

was used, with one billion equivalent to one million million.

Historic numbering systems

Numbering systems in Hindu epics

There are various systems of numeration found in various ancient epic literature of India (''

itihasa Itihasa () refers to the collection of written descriptions of important events in Hinduism. It includes the Mahabharata, the Puranas and the Ramayana. The Mahabharata includes the story of the Kurukshetra War and preserves the traditions of ...

s''). The following table gives one such system used in the Valmiki

Ramayana The ''Rāmāyana'' (; sa, रामायणम्, ) is a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic composed over a period of nearly a millennium, with scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text ranging from the 8th ...

Other numbering systems

The denominations by which land was measured in the

Kumaon Kingdom Kumaon Kingdom was an independent Himalayan kingdom in the eastern region of present-day Uttarakhand state of India. It was established around 7th century and remained an independent and sovereign kingdom until 1791. Etymology Kumaon is beli ...

were based on arable lands and thus followed an approximate system with local variations. The most common of these was a

vigesimal vigesimal () or base-20 (base-score) numeral system is based on twenty (in the same way in which the decimal numeral system is based on ten). '' Vigesimal'' is derived from the Latin adjective '' vicesimus'', meaning 'twentieth'. Places In ...

(base-20) numbering system with the main denomination called a ''bisi'' (see Hindustani number ''bīs''), which corresponded to the land required to sow 20 ''nalis'' of seed. Consequently, its actual land measure varied based on the quality of the soil. This system became the established norm in Kumaon by 1891.

Usage in different languages

* In Assamese, a lakh is also called ''lokhyo'', or ''lakh'' and a crore is called ''kouti'' * In

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

, a lakh is natively (tadbhava) known as ''lākh'', though some use the ardha-tatsama ''lokkho''. A crore is called ''kōṭi'' * In Burmese, crore is called . Lakh is used in

Burmese English Myanmar English (also called Burmese English) is the register of the English language used in Myanmar (Burma), spoken as first or second language by an estimated 2.4 million people, about 5% of the population (1997). The English language was ini ...

. *In

Dhivehi Dhivehi, also spelled Divehi, may refer to: *Dhivehi people, an ethnic group native to the historic region of the Maldive Islands. *Dhivehi language, an Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken by about 350,000 people in the Republic of Maldives ...

, a lakh is called ލައްކަ la'kha and a crore is called ކްރޯރް kroaru * In

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...

, a lakh is called ''lākh'' and a crore is called ''karoḍ''. A hundred crore is called ''abaj'' * In

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

, a lakh is called ''lākh'' and a crore is called ''karoḍ''. A hundred crore is called ''arab'' * In

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

, a lakh is called ''lakṣha'' and a crore is called ''kōṭi'' * In

Khasi Khasi may refer to: * Khasi people, an ethnic group of Meghalaya, India * Khasi language, a major Austroasiatic language spoken in Meghalaya, India * Khāṣi language, an Indo-Aryan language of Jammu and Kashmir, India See also * Khasi Hills * Gh ...

, a lakh is called ''lak'' and a crore is called ''klur'' or ''krur''. A billion is called ''arab'' and hundred billion is called ''kharab''. * In

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

, a lakh is called ''laksham'' and a crore is called ''kodi''. * In

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

, a lakh is called ''lākh'' and a crore is called ''koṭi'' or ''karoḍ'', and an (10⁹) is called ''abja''. * In Nepali, a lakh is called ''lākh'' and a crore is called ''karoḍ''. * In

Odia Odia, also spelled Oriya or Odiya, may refer to: * Odia people in Odisha, India * Odia language, an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family * Odia alphabet, a writing system used for the Odia languag ...

, a lakh is called ''lôkhyô'' and a crore is called ''koṭi''. * In

Punjabi Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to: * Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pakistan * Punjabi language * Punjabi people * Punjabi dialects and languages Punjabi may also refer to: * Punjabi (horse), a British Th ...

, a lakh is called ''lakkh'' (

Shahmukhi Shahmukhi (, ) is a Persian alphabet, Perso-Arabic alphabet script used historically by Punjabi Muslims (primarily in present-day Punjab, Pakistan, Pakistani Punjab) to write the Punjabi language. It is generally written in the Nastaʿlīq Callig ...

: ,

Gurmukhi Gurmukhī ( pa, ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ, , Shahmukhi: ) is an abugida developed from the Laṇḍā scripts, standardized and used by the second Sikh guru, Guru Angad (1504–1552). It is used by Punjabi Sikhs to write the language, commonly r ...

: ) and a crore is called ''karoṛ'' (

: ,

: ). * In

Rohingya The Rohingya people () are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnic group who predominantly follow Islam and reside in Rakhine State, Myanmar (previously known as Burma). Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, an ...

, a lakh is called ''lák'' and a crore is called ''kurul''. A thousand crore is called ''kuthí''. * In Sinhala, a lakh is called and a crore is called . * In

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nati ...

, a lakh is called ''ilaṭcam'' and a crore is called ''kōṭi''. * In

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

, a lakh is called ''lakṣha'' and a crore is called ''kōṭi''. * In

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Swahili language Swahili, also known by its local name , is the native language of the Swahili people, who are found primarily in Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique (along the East African coast and adjacent litoral islands). It is a Bantu language, though Swahili ...

as "" and is in common use. Formal written publications in English in India tend to use lakh/crore for Indian currency and International numbering for foreign currencies.

Current usage

The usage of this system is limited to the nations of

, and

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

. It is universally employed within these countries, and is preferred to the English numbering system.

used this system in the past but has switched to the English numbering system in recent years. In the

, the term lakh is widely used in official documents and local speech. However, the English numbering system is preferred for higher denominations (i.e millions etc). Most institutions and citizens in India use the Indian number system, although the

Reserve Bank of India The Reserve Bank of India, chiefly known as RBI, is India's central bank and regulatory body responsible for regulation of the Indian banking system. It is under the ownership of Ministry of Finance, Government of India. It is responsible for ...

has been noted as a rare exception.

References

{{Reflist Numerals Numbering system Numbering system Numbering system Numbering system Numeral systems Economy of Bangladesh