When is a billion not a billion?

Did you know that the American system for naming large numbers is not the same as the British system? What we call a billion, they call a thousand million. And what they call a billion, we call a trillion! And it continues from there. After a million, we do not agree on any of the names for large numbers. The chart below summarizes the differences.

Power American British of 10 Name Name 1,000 103 thousand thousand 1,000,000 106 million million thousand 1,000,000,000 109 billion million 1,000,000,000,000 1012 trillion billion thousand 1,000,000,000,000,000 1015 quadrillion billion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 1018 quintillion trillion Number As you can see, Americans name their numbers based on powers of 10 that are multiples of 3, while the British name theirs based on multiples of 6.