Lakh

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A lakh (also written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; 105). It is widely used both in official and other contexts in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Pakistan, and is often used in Indian English.

This system of measurement also introduces separators into numbers in a place that is different from that which is common in certain other number systems. For example, 30 lakh which is to say 3 million, would be written as 30,00,000 instead of 3,000,000. In this system of counting, a hundred lakhs make a crore, which is ten million.

In India, one lakh is written as 1,00,000. In most other parts of the world, the comma appears every three positions, so a lakh would usually be written as 100,000 outside India.

In India, the first comma appears after three places, but after every two places thereafter.

Examples of the Indian comma system: 12,12,12,123    5,05,000    7,00,00,00,000.

The same examples in the Western system: 121,212,123    505,000    7,000,000,000

[edit] Etymology and regional variants

The lakh is known by various regional names in modern languages, all derived from the Sanskrit word लक्ष lakṣa "hundred thousand":

[edit] See also