Lakh

Indian subcontinentCurrent unit

One hundred thousand (10⁵). The standard unit in the Indian numbering system, written 1,00,000.

1 lakh = 100,000 pieces (exactly).

1 lakh = 100,000 pieces

About the lakh

Gambling stakes may have named the lakh. The Sanskrit word lakṣa originally meant a mark, a target or a stake in gambling, and in the Classical Sanskrit of the Gupta era it became the numeral for 100,000. English borrowed it from South Asia, and other languages did too: in Malay and Indonesian, laksa means 10,000 instead. The Indian numbering system gives a name to nearly every second power of ten, which is why a hundred thousand gets its own word rather than being called ten myriads or a hundred thousands.

A lakh is 100,000, written 1,00,000 under Indian digit grouping: the first three digits from the right form one group and every later group has two digits. It is the everyday system in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, where it is preferred over the international one. Rupee amounts are stated in lakhs, so 150,000 rupees is 1.5 lakh. Indian English also uses lakhs of as a loose phrase for very many, and formal publications usually give foreign currencies in the international system and rupees in lakhs and crores.

Sources: Wikipedia: Lakh; Wikipedia: Indian numbering system

Lakh conversion chart

1 lakh expressed in every other counting & quantity unit:

Unit1 lakh
Pieces100,000
Dozens8,333.333333
Millions0.1
Crores0.01
Billions (short Scale)0.0001
Pairs50,000
Hundred1,000
Gross694.4444444
Thousand100
Trillions (short Scale)1×10⁻⁷
Score5,000
Half Dozens16,666.66667
Quadrillions1×10⁻¹⁰
Reams200
Moles1.660539067×10⁻¹⁹
Baker's Dozens7,692.307692
Small Gross833.3333333
Great Gross57.87037037
Myriads10
Yi / Oku0.001
Arab (Indian)0.0001
Kharab (Indian)0.000001
Billions (long Scale)1×10⁻⁷
Quires4,000

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