How many zeros, billions and millions are there in a trillion?

Confusion about billions and trillions is understandable, as their meaning changed in 1975, when Chancellor Denis Healey announced that UK would adopt the U.S. counting system in order to make global communication easier and more efficient.

This way the ‘old’ milliard became a billion the ‘old’ billion - a trillion etc.

How many is a trillion then, actually?

It’s 1,000,000,000,000. A trillion has 12 zeros and is equal to a thousand billions and a million millions.

	Number of zeros	Billions	Millions
1 trillion = 1,000,000,000,000	12	1000	1,000,000

Did you know?

The current number naming system in UK is called “the short scale”, as opposed to “the long scale”. In the short scale, billion equals 109 and trillion means 1012 while in the long scale, billion = 1012 and trillion = 1018.

The short scale is used in the USA and the majority of English- and Arabic-speaking countries while the long scale is used in the Continental Europe countries as well as French-, Portuguese-, and Spanish-speaking countries except for Brazil.

Do you think that adopting the short scale in UK was a good idea? Share your thoughts below!