Lakhs to Billions (short Scale) (lakh to B)
1 lakh equals 0.0001 billions (short scale) exactly.
How to convert lakhs to billions (short scale)
To convert lakhs to billions (short scale), multiply the number of lakhs by 0.0001. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply billions (short scale) by 10,000.
billions (short scale) = lakhs × 0.0001
Example: 10 lakhs = 0.001 billions (short scale).
Large-number names differ around the world: this site uses the short scale (billion = 10⁹) by default, and lists the long-scale billion separately.
About these units
Lakh (lakh)
One hundred thousand (10⁵). The standard unit in the Indian numbering system, written 1,00,000.
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.
1 lakh = 100,000 pieces (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Lakh; Wikipedia: Indian numbering system
Billion (short Scale) (B)
One thousand million (10⁹). The meaning used in the US, UK and most English-speaking countries today.
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.
1 billion (short scale) = 1,000,000,000 pieces (exactly).
Sources: Hansard, 20 Dec 1974: Billion (Definition), written answer; Wikipedia: Billion; United Nations: Day of Eight Billion
Related conversions
- Billions (short scale) to lakhs (reverse)
- Lakhs to pieces
- Lakhs to dozens
- Lakhs to millions
- Lakhs to crores
- Lakhs to pairs
- Lakhs to hundred
- Lakhs to gross
- Lakhs to thousand
- Lakhs to trillions (short scale)
- Lakhs to score
- Lakhs to half dozens
- Lakhs to quadrillions
- Pieces to billions (short scale)
- Dozens to billions (short scale)
- Millions to billions (short scale)
- Crores to billions (short scale)
- Pairs to billions (short scale)
- Hundred to billions (short scale)
- Gross to billions (short scale)
- Thousand to billions (short scale)
- Trillions (short scale) to billions (short scale)
- Score to billions (short scale)
- Half dozens to billions (short scale)
- Quadrillions to billions (short scale)
See all counting & quantity units.