Maybe it's not only the British but British sources are the only places I've ever come across things like a thousand million. I get that one, it's a billion and that's actually pretty obvious; however, what is a thousand million million? Is that a billion millions?

I made this query at Google and it was the first time I recall getting confused responses from that site. Granted it may have been that I was using a mobile device so I didn’t pose the query in as many forms as I would here at my desktop, but still it was, I thought, a pretty straight forward question; “Okay Google; What is a thousand million million?” That just resulted in a lot of explanations of what a billion was.

This is as close as I got to an answer from Google using my desktop;
A million is equal to a thousand thousands (1,000 x 1,000).
A billion is equal to a thousand millions (1,000 x 1,000,000).
A trillion is equal to a thousand billions (1,000 x 1,000,000,000)
or a million millions (1,000,000 x 1,000,000).
So a thousand million million is a thousand trillion right? One quadrillion?

Regardless if that is the right answer or not, I would like to know why this is done. Does this terminology somehow make better sense than billion, trillion, quadrillion...?

No it isn't! Obvious, I mean.


What Europe has (and the system British English used to have, even if the name is not used) but what Americans completely missed out on, is the milliard - a thousand million. The US, and modern British, billion. The short billion.
When you have a milliard you have the long scale of a billion being a million million.




The name 'milliard' is not used in English, but the words 'a thousand million' are used in British English to make it clear, because a billion is something different to many people - a million million.

But most western European languages still use the milliard



eg Icelandic,
hundrað (2), þúsund (3), milljón (6), milljarður (9), billjón (12), then combine or, if you want, billjarður (15), trilljón(18), trilljarður (21). Then it just gets silly, but if you ever feel the need - kvaðrilljón (24), kvaðrilljarður (27) kvintilljón (30)
It is precise, a new name for every thousand times increase.
In between, use "a hundred million", or if you don't want to use a milliard, as in English, "a thousand million".



(It is labelled as 'mixed' in Canada because French Canadians use the French milliard system, so the long billion = million million).

There is a difference between what is used in internally, and what is used when dealing with American and British systems internationally - and the result is a lot of confusion, especially by those who don't realise there is another system. (Not to insult Americans in particular, but the education system there does tend to leave people with less awareness than some countries, that some other places do things differently - I think you will agree on that one?) !

Anything bigger than a hundred million is
1 impossible to comprehend anyway, so a few zeros make little difference to any visualisation
2 best given in scientific notation if you want to be clear

edit - some repetition of what Bob has said.

Haha! She was right for Billionaires, but only a little right for millionaires.

Look at the ACTUAL amount of money.
An English millionaire had (in 1960, say, just before you were born) liquid assets of 10⁶ or 1,000,000 POUNDS.
An American millionaire had 10⁶ dollars - 1,000,000 dollars or 333,000 pounds. A third of the money an English millionaire had, or less (when I was a lad a dollar was five bob - a quarter of a pound).

An English Billionaire had 1,000,000,000,000 pounds.
An American Billionaire had 1,000,000,000 dollars - or 333,000,000 pounds. That's a BIG difference.
An English person had to make three or four thousand times the wealth of an American, for the same "status".