How many is a billion?

Question

Ithought it was 1000 million but someone else said its a million million which is correct?

Answer 1

1000,000,000 is correct.


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I stand corrected. Apparently it's 1000 million for the US, and 1 million million for Europe. See link.

Answer 2

I live in Australia. When I was growing up (not that long ago), I knew that 1 billion = 1 million x 1 million -- that was the definition given in the dictionaries, encyclopedias and textbooks available to me. I was vaguely aware of the US definition of 1 billion, but as I am not American, it bore no relevance to me at the time.

Newspapers started reporting on figures that had broken the '1 billion' mark. Country/world populations, billionaires, etc. were suddenly being discussed far more often than they ever had before. I soon realised that this was not because anyone had earned 1 million million dollars, or because the world now contained 1 million million people. The term 'billion' had been redefined using the US definition.

At first I disregarded articles that used the US definition of 1 billion, but I never saw the non-US definition used anywhere, because no-one had 1 000 000 000 000 of anything yet. I (and the rest of the world) have now accepted the US definition of 1 billion as the 'correct' one. Like other aspects of any other living language, words change all the time...

Answer 3

One thousand million is correct (10 to the 9th power). There used to be controversy over American and European notations (and may still be with the European man on the street), but 1,000 million has become accepted internationally. Think of the havoc such a discrepancy would cause in the international scientific and financial worlds.

Answer 4

Believe it or not, it's two different amounts, depending on where you are. The British consider it to be a million million, while Americans consider it a thousand million.

Answer 5

One thousand million (1,000,000,000) is the natural number following 999999999 and preceding 1000000001. In English, it is usually called a billion or a "thousand million". (A milliard can also be used to refer to 1,000,000,000, though this terminology is much rarer). In other languages, billion rarely means 1000000000.

In scientific notation, it is written as 109. Physical quantities can be expressed using the SI prefix giga.

Answer 6

The American definition of a Billion is a thousand million (1,000,000,000).
The British definition of a Billion is a million million (1,000,000,000,000)

Answer 7

The facts below give a sense of how large one billion (one thousand million, 109) is in the context of passage of time.

About a billion seconds ago, the parents of middle school children were themselves in elementary school. (One billion seconds is roughly 31.7 years.)
About a billion minutes ago, the Roman Empire was flourishing. (One billion minutes is roughly 1,900 years.)
About a billion hours ago, modern human beings and their ancestors were living in the Stone Age (more precisely, the Middle Paleolithic). (One billion hours is roughly 114,000 years.)
About a billion days ago, Australopithecus, an ape-like creature related to an ancestor of modern humans, roamed the African savannas. (One billion days is roughly 2.7 million years.)
About a billion months ago, dinosaurs walked the earth during the late Cretaceous. (One billion months is roughly 82 million years.)
About a billion years ago, the first multicellular organisms appeared on Earth. (The universe is now thought to be about 13.7 billion years old.)
In terms of distance:

A billion centimeters is about the distance from Chicago, Illinois, USA to Tokyo, Japan.
A billion inches is 15,783 miles, more than halfway around the world and sufficient to reach any point on the globe from any other point.
A billion meters is almost three times the distance from the Earth to the Moon.
A billion kilometers is over six times the distance from the Earth to the Sun.
In terms of count:

Answer 8

One thousand million (1,000,000,000) is the natural number following 999999999 and preceding 1000000001. In English, it is usually called a billion or a "thousand million".

Answer 9

It is a thousand million..The next number after 999 million

Answer 10

depends usa is a 100 million europe is a million million