Lakh and Crore vs Million and Billion: The Two Number Systems Explained

Is Rs 25 lakh more or less than 2.5 million? (They are exactly the same.) Is a crore bigger than a million? (Yes, ten times bigger.) Anyone who works across Pakistan, India and the rest of the world meets this every day: two different ways of naming and writing large numbers, used side by side in news, banking, business and conversation.

This guide explains how the South Asian system (thousand, lakh, crore, arab, kharab) and the international system (thousand, million, billion, trillion) work, how to convert between them in your head, and where both came from. Every conversion below was produced by our free Pakistani/Indian Number System Converter.

Two ways to count in big steps

Both systems use the same ten digits and the same place values. The difference is only in where they put the names, and the commas:

• International system: a new name every three zeros. Thousand (1,000), million (1,000,000), billion (1,000,000,000), trillion (1,000,000,000,000). Each name is 1,000 times the one before.
• South Asian system: after the thousand, a new name every two zeros. Lakh (1,00,000), crore (1,00,00,000), arab (1,00,00,00,000), kharab (1,00,00,00,00,000). Each name is 100 times the one before.

Notice the neat coincidence at arab: one arab is exactly one billion. Below and above that point, the names fall on different powers of ten, which is what makes conversion tricky.

How the commas work

In the international system, commas separate every group of three digits from the right: 1,234,567,890. In the South Asian system, the first comma from the right comes after three digits (the hundreds), and every comma after that comes after two digits, so each group matches a name: 1,23,45,67,890 reads as 1 arab, 23 crore, 45 lakh, 67 thousand, 890.

Converting in your head

A few equivalences cover almost every everyday conversion:

• 10 lakh = 1 million. So lakh ÷ 10 = million: 25 lakh = 2.5 million.
• 1 crore = 10 million. So crore × 10 = million: 2.5 crore = 25 million.
• 100 crore = 1 arab = 1 billion. So a billion is a hundred crore.
• 1 trillion = 10 kharab, which in India is usually said as 1 lakh crore (10⁵ × 10⁷ = 10¹²). That is why Indian budget figures are often quoted in "lakh crore".
• Going the other way: 1.5 billion = 1.5 arab, which the converter writes in words as "one arab fifty crore".

A short history of both systems

The digits themselves came from India

Both systems are written with the same place-value digits, and those digits are Indian in origin. Indian mathematicians developed decimal place value with a true zero. In 628 CE, Brahmagupta set out rules for calculating with zero. The system spread west through Persian and Arab scholars, most famously al-Khwarizmi in the 9th century, which is why Europeans called them "Arabic numerals". Fibonacci's book "Liber Abaci" (1202) helped popularise them in Europe. Today they are usually called Hindu–Arabic numerals.

So the difference between lakh and million is not about the digits. It is about how two traditions chose to name large numbers.

Lakh, crore, arab and kharab

The South Asian names come from Sanskrit. Lakh comes from lakṣa and crore from koṭi. Arab and kharab are linked to the Sanskrit arbuda and kharva. Early Indian texts listed names for powers of ten far larger than anything used in daily life, though the exact value attached to some names varied from text to text. The sequence continues beyond kharab, with names commonly listed as neel, padma and shankh, but these are rarely used today.

Over centuries these names became the everyday way of counting money, land and population across the subcontinent, in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, Nepali and other languages. During the colonial period, lakh and crore entered English too, and they remain standard in Indian and Pakistani English.

Million and billion

The word million comes from medieval Italian milione, a "great thousand", used by merchants and bankers. In 1484 the French mathematician Nicolas Chuquet wrote about larger names built on it, such as byllion and tryllion. In his scheme a billion meant a million million (10¹²). This is the long scale, which much of continental Europe still uses. German and French, for example, have a separate word, Milliarde or milliard, for 10⁹.

The United States adopted the short scale, where a billion is a thousand million (10⁹), and the United Kingdom officially switched to it in 1974. Today the short scale is the standard in English and in international finance. So even the "international" system has its own history of two meanings for the same word.

Where each system is used today

• India: lakh and crore are used almost everywhere: speech, news, government documents and company reports, which often state figures "in ₹ crore". Very large amounts are commonly expressed in lakh crore.
• Pakistan: lakh, crore (karor), arab and kharab dominate everyday Urdu and English speech and news reporting. Formal financial statements often use thousands, millions and billions instead.
• Bangladesh and Nepal: lakh and crore are also in everyday use.
• International business: million, billion and trillion, with commas every three digits.

Software reflects this too. The standard locale data built into web browsers formats Indian locales with lakh-style commas: in JavaScript, (1234567890).toLocaleString('en-IN') gives 1,23,45,67,890. The same data formats Pakistani locales (en-PK, ur-PK) with international commas: 1,234,567,890.

Writing amounts on cheques and documents

Cheques in Pakistan and India are normally written in the South Asian system. For Rs 2,500,000, our Cheque Amount Interpreter gives "Rupees Twenty-Five Lakh Only", while the same figure in US dollars is written "Two Million Five Hundred Thousand Dollars Only". Always follow your bank's own rules, and make sure the words and the figures match exactly.

Common mistakes

• Mixing comma styles. 25,00,000 and 2,500,000 are the same number, but a reader used to the other style can misread it. In documents for an international audience, use international commas or write the unit in words.
• Mixing units. Phrases like "2 lakh million" are confusing. Pick one system per sentence.
• Converting by the wrong factor. A crore is 10 million, not 1 million. A lakh is 100,000, not a million.
• Assuming "billion" is universal. In many European languages, billion still means 10¹², so translations of large figures need care.

How to use the converter

1. Open the Pakistani/Indian Number System Converter.
2. Type a number in any form: a plain number (25000000), either comma style (2,50,00,000 or 25,000,000), or a value with a unit word (2.5 crore, 1.5 billion, 25 lakh).
3. Read both systems side by side: comma formats, short forms such as "2.5 crore" and "25 million", the place-value breakdown, and the amount in words in each system.
4. Copy whichever form you need. Everything runs in your browser.