Large Numbers Around Us
Of crores and crores
Find out what a crore is, and how it fits into the Indian number system.
Press +10,00,000 ten times and you get 100 lakhs, called a crore: 1,00,00,000, a 1 followed by seven zeroes.
There are two ways of naming and grouping big numbers:
- Indian system: commas from the right in a 3-2-2-2 pattern — thousands, lakhs, crores.
- American (International) system: commas in a 3-3-3 pattern — thousands, millions, billions.
| Indian | Name | American | Name | Zeroes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,00,000 | one lakh | 100,000 | hundred thousand | 5 |
| 10,00,000 | ten lakh | 1,000,000 | one million | 6 |
| 1,00,00,000 | one crore | 10,000,000 | ten million | 7 |
| 10,00,00,000 | ten crore | 100,000,000 | hundred million | 8 |
| 1,00,00,00,000 | one arab (100 crore) | 1,000,000,000 | one billion | 9 |
So 1 million = 10 lakh (a video with a million views has been watched 10 lakh times), and 1 billion = 100 crore.
A lakh is 100 thousands, a crore is 100 lakhs, and an arab is 100 crores. The Indian system is also used in Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Afghanistan and Myanmar. Lakh and crore come from the Sanskrit lakṣha and koṭi.
Put the commas in first, and a long number becomes easy. 9876501234:
- Indian: 9,87,65,01,234 → 9 arab 87 crore 65 lakh 1 thousand 234 (or 987 crore 65 lakh 1 thousand 234)
- American: 9,876,501,234 → 9 billion 876 million 501 thousand 234
To compare across the two systems, change both into the same system first. 500 lakh = 5 crore = 50 million, so 500 lakh > 5 million. 640 crore = 6.4 billion, so 640 crore < 60 billion. Counting zeroes is the quickest way to check.
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