Billion (short Scale) (B)
One thousand million (10⁹). The meaning used in the US, UK and most English-speaking countries today.
1 billion (short scale) = 1,000,000,000 pieces (exactly).
About the billion (short scale)
For decades British and American speakers meant different things by billion. The short-scale sense, a thousand million, took hold in the United States in the 19th century, while Britain kept the older meaning of a million million. From the 1950s the short scale spread through British technical writing and journalism, and Winston Churchill had remarked in 1941 that for practical financial purposes a billion was a thousand millions.
The official break came on December 20, 1974. Asked in Parliament whether ministers would be required to use the traditional British meaning, Prime Minister Harold Wilson answered no, explaining that billion was now used internationally for 1,000 million and that using it any other way would cause confusion. He conceded it could still be read as a million million and asked colleagues to avoid ambiguity. Today a billion is 10⁹, matching the SI prefix giga, and the UN projected that world population would reach 8 billion on November 15, 2022.
Sources: Hansard, 20 Dec 1974: Billion (Definition), written answer; Wikipedia: Billion; United Nations: Day of Eight Billion
Billion (short Scale) conversion chart
1 billion (short scale) expressed in every other counting & quantity unit:
| Unit | 1 billion (short scale) |
|---|---|
| Pieces | 1,000,000,000 |
| Dozens | 83,333,333.33 |
| Lakhs | 10,000 |
| Millions | 1,000 |
| Crores | 100 |
| Pairs | 500,000,000 |
| Hundred | 10,000,000 |
| Gross | 6,944,444.444 |
| Thousand | 1,000,000 |
| Trillions (short Scale) | 0.001 |
| Score | 50,000,000 |
| Half Dozens | 166,666,666.7 |
| Quadrillions | 0.000001 |
| Reams | 2,000,000 |
| Moles | 1.660539067×10⁻¹⁵ |
| Baker's Dozens | 76,923,076.92 |
| Small Gross | 8,333,333.333 |
| Great Gross | 578,703.7037 |
| Myriads | 100,000 |
| Yi / Oku | 10 |
| Arab (Indian) | 1 |
| Kharab (Indian) | 0.01 |
| Billions (long Scale) | 0.001 |
| Quires | 40,000,000 |
More General & non-SI units
- piece (counting & quantity)
- pair (counting & quantity)
- score (counting & quantity)
- hundred (counting & quantity)
- thousand (counting & quantity)
- million (counting & quantity)
- trillion (short scale) (counting & quantity)
- billion (long scale) (counting & quantity)
- quadrillion (counting & quantity)
- degree (angle)
- gradian (angle)
- turn (angle)
- arcminute (angle)
- arcsecond (angle)
- right angle (angle)
- octant (angle)
Browse all counting & quantity units.