Long and short scales
two of several different large-number naming systems for integer powers of ten
The long and short scales are two powers-of-ten number-naming systems that are consistent with each other for smaller numbers, but are distinct for larger numbers. Much of the world has adopted either the short or long scale. Countries using the long scale include most countries in continental Europe and most that are French-speaking, German-speaking and Spanish-speaking. Use of the short scale is found in most English-speaking and Arabic-speaking countries, as well as most Eurasian Post-Soviet countries, Israel, and Brazil.
For smaller powers of ten (one, ten, hundred, thousand, and million), the short and long scales are identical; they however differ for larger powers of ten. The long scale grows between names by multiples of one million (106) whereas the short scale grows by multiples of one thousand (103). For example, the short scale billion is one thousand million (109), whereas in the long scale, billion is one million million (1012), making the word 'billion' a false friend between long- and short-scale languages. The long scale system includes additional names for interleaved values, typically replacing the word-ending '-ion' with '-iard'.
To avoid confusion, the International System of Units (SI) recommends using the metric prefixes to indicate magnitude. For example, giga- is always 109, which is 'billion' in short scale but 'milliard' in long scale.
“Long and short scales” enters the record as two of several different large-number naming systems for integer powers of ten. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Long, short and scales can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q725503. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1012.
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This entry incorporates text from “Long and short scales” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.