What is the difference between the long scale and the short scale?

Both scales start the same way: a million is 1,000,000 everywhere. They split at the next step. The short scale gives a new name every three zeros: billion, trillion, quadrillion. The long scale gives a new name every six zeros and fills the gaps with "-ard" words: milliard, billiard, trilliard.

The quick conversion: a long-scale billion is a short-scale trillion, and a long-scale trillion is a short-scale quintillion. If you want the full ladder of American names first, start with our guide to how many zeros are in a trillion.

Why does a German "Billion Mark" note mean a trillion marks?

German counts Million, Milliarde, Billion. By late 1923 the Reichsbank was printing notes in Billionen Mark, and every one of those Billionen was a million million marks, 10¹².

The history lines up with the arithmetic. On November 15, 1923, Germany introduced the Rentenmark at one Rentenmark for one Billion paper marks, and set it at 4.2 Rentenmark to the US dollar. That put the dollar at 4.2 Billionen paper marks: 4.2 trillion in American English. The highest German note, dated February 15, 1924, was 100 Billionen Mark, a 1 followed by 14 zeros. Our reference page on the German 100 trillion mark note covers it in detail, and our post on Germany's 1923 railway money shows the same words on a different issuer's notes.

Read a 1923 German note with an American ear and you will undercount it by a factor of a thousand.

What does the "b." in b.-pengő stand for?

Billió. Hungarian is a long-scale language too: millió, milliárd, billió. In 1946 Hungary stacked two new units on top of the pengő to keep its notes printable. The milpengő was one million pengő, and the b.-pengő was one billió pengő, 10¹². Multiply the figure on the face by the unit and you get the value in pengő.

Watch the last row. Milliárd is the Hungarian word for an American billion, 10⁹. Multiply it by the billió hidden in "b.-pengő" and you land on 10²¹, a sextillion, from a note whose face reads "one milliárd".

How do you read Spanish, Italian and Serbian denominations?

Spanish says mil millones (sometimes millardo) for 10⁹ and billón for 10¹², so a Venezuelan report in "billones" is talking about what an American paper would call trillions. Venezuela has removed 14 zeros in three steps: three in 2008, five in 2018 and six in 2021. By our arithmetic, one 500 Bolívares Digitales note equals 50,000 billones of pre-2008 bolívares, which is 50 quadrillion in American English. More on that note in our post on the 500 Bolívares and the 500 million old bolívares behind it.

Italian uses miliardo for 10⁹ and bilione for 10¹²; the Italian government confirmed the long-scale meaning in 1994.

Serbian, the language on Yugoslavia's 1993 notes, uses milijarda for 10⁹. The 500,000,000,000 dinara note is 500 milijardi: 500 billion in American English. Our complete guide to the 1993 500 billion dinara covers the note itself.

Which word means a billion in each language?

Keep this table next to your album. The middle column is the American billion; the right column is the American trillion.

Brazil is the odd one out among Portuguese speakers: it uses the short scale, so its bilhão matches the American billion.

When did Britain and the United States switch scales?

American English settled on the short scale in the 19th century. Britain kept the long scale far longer. In 1974 Prime Minister Harold Wilson, answering a written question in Parliament, said: "The word 'billion' is now used internationally to mean 1,000 million." France went the other way and returned to the long scale in 1948.

For collectors the practical upshot is simple. English-language catalogs and dealer listings, ours included, translate big denominations into the short scale. The note itself speaks its own language, so when the two seem to disagree by a factor of a thousand, the scale is usually why.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a billion the same in Europe and America?

Not everywhere. In the US and the UK a billion is 1,000,000,000. In most of continental Europe and Latin America the word for 1,000,000,000 is a milliard (or mil millones), and "billion" means 1,000,000,000,000.

What does milliard mean?

A thousand million, 1,000,000,000. It is the long-scale word for what Americans call a billion.

What is a billiard as a number?

On the long scale, a billiard is 10¹⁵, a 1 followed by 15 zeros. Americans call that a quadrillion.

Why is a German Billion a trillion?

German uses the long scale, where Billion means a million million, 10¹². That is an American trillion, so Germany's 1923 Billionen Mark notes were trillions of marks.

What does b.-pengő mean?

Billió-pengő. One b.-pengő was 10¹² pengő, so Hungary's 1946 1,000,000 b.-pengő note (Pick 134) was one quintillion pengő.

Does the UK use the long or the short scale?

The short scale. The British government officially adopted the 1,000 million billion in 1974.