Decimal currency

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Decimal currency is the term used to describe any currency for which the ratio between the basic unit of currency and its sub-unit is a power of 10.

In practice this usually means that 100 sub-units make up 1 of the basic units, but currencies divided into 1000 sub-units also exist, especially in Arab countries.

For example:

Today, the only currencies which are not decimal are those that have no sub-units at all, except for:

Historically, non-decimal currencies were much more common, such as the British pound Sterling before decimalisation in 1971. Until 1971, the world's leading currency, the pound Sterling worked on a system of pence (12 to a shilling) and shillings (20 to a pound), plus other combinations (ha'pence, guinea, and crown); and in addition the penny was divided into 4 farthings. A pound could be subdivided in 19 different ways into integral numbers of pence (for example, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, 1/8 and 1/10 of a pound were respectively 60, 48, 40, 30, and 24 pence exactly) and in 8 additional ways into integral numbers of farthings (for example, 1/64 pound was 3 pence 3 farthings, written 3¾d).

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