Millions to Lakhs (M to lakh)

1 million equals 10 lakhs exactly.

1 million = 10 lakhs

How to convert millions to lakhs

To convert millions to lakhs, multiply the number of millions by 10. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply lakhs by 0.1.

lakhs = millions × 10

Example: 10 millions = 100 lakhs.

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

Million (M)

General & non-SICurrent unit

One million (10⁶).

Million comes from Italian. Old Italian milione was built from mille, a thousand, plus an augmentative ending, so it began as something like a big thousand. The name proved useful as a stem: by 1475 the French mathematician Jehan Adam was already building larger names from it, bymillion and trimillion, for 10¹² and 10¹⁸. The short and long scales agree on the million itself, 1,000,000 or 10⁶, and diverge only for the larger names. The SI prefix mega- stands for 10⁶.

Millions are hard to feel. Counting out a million items one by one is famously laborious, yet a million seconds lasts only about 11.57 days. A billion seconds, by contrast, is roughly 31.7 years.

1 million = 1,000,000 pieces (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Million; Wikipedia: Names of large numbers; BIPM SI Brochure, 9th edition (2019)

Lakh (lakh)

Indian subcontinentCurrent unit

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

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