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Definition: long scale


The system used in many European countries for numbers greater than one million. In the long scale, a billion is a million millions rather than a thousand millions, which is the "short scale. Often called the British numbering system, the long scale was used in the U.K. until the mid-1970s, and numbers in older British documents are in long scale. See space/time and binary values.

 Short Scale (U.S.)
 One billion               1,000,000,000
 One trillion          1,000,000,000,000

 Long Scale (Europe)
 One billion           1,000,000,000,000
 One trillion  1,000,000,000,000,000,000