How many zeros are in a billion?
A billion has 9 zeros: 1,000,000,000. That is one thousand million. In older British usage, a billion once meant a million million, with 12 zeros.
Today almost all English-speaking countries use the short scale, in which each new word is a thousand times the one before. A million has 6 zeros, a billion 9 zeros and a trillion 12 zeros. The United Kingdom officially adopted this system in 1974.
Many other languages still use the long scale, in which a billion means a million million. In French, German, Spanish and Turkish, for example, the word for one thousand million is milliard or a similar word, and their billion is 1,000,000,000,000.
How big is a billion?
If you counted one number every second without stopping, reaching one million would take about 11.5 days. Reaching one billion would take about 31.7 years. In scientific notation, a billion is written as 10 to the power of 9, or 10⁹, and the metric prefix giga, as in gigabyte, means one billion.
Did You Know?
A trillion has 12 zeros, a quadrillion 15 and a quintillion 18. Some countries' national debts and big tech companies' values are now counted in trillions.