Lakh

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A lakh or lac is a Punjabi word which is also used by other communities in Southeast Asia and is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to the number 100,000 or one hundred thousand (100,000; 105). It is widely used both in official and other contexts in Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Pakistan, and is often used in Indian English.

In English the word is used both as an attributive and non-attributive noun, and with either a marked ("-s") or unmarked plural: "1 lakh people" or "1 lakh of people", "5 lakh rupees", "5 lakh of rupees", "5 lakhs rupees", "5 lakhs of rupees" are all to be found.

The Indian numbering system also uses Decimal separator differently from the Western system — after the first three digits, a comma divides every two rather than every three digits, thus:

Indian System Western System
12,12,12,123 121,212,123
5,05,000 505,000
7,00,00,00,000 7,000,000,000

This accords with the Indian numbering system, which has units for thousand, hundred thousand, ten million, etc.

See also