the long and short scales are two of several large-number naming systems used throughout the world for integer powers of ten: :long scale: every new term greater than million is one million times larger than the previous term. thus, billion means a million&nbsp;millions (1012), trillion means a million&nbsp;billions (1018), and so on. :short scale: every new term greater than million is one thousand times larger than the previous term. thus, billion means a thousand millions (109), trillion means a thousand&nbsp;billions (1012), and so on. for integers less than a thousand million (&lt; 109), the two scales are identical. at and above a thousand million (â¥ 109), the two scales diverge by using the same words for different number values. these "false friends" can be a source of misunderstanding. many countries, including most in continental europe and latin america, use the long scale whereas most english-speaking countries and arabic-speaking countries use the short scale. in all such countries, the number names are translated into the local language, but retain a name similarity due to shared etymology. some languages, particularly in east asia and south asia, have large number naming systems that are different from both the long and short scales.   for most of the 19th century and into the early 20th century, the united kingdom largely used the long scale,  {{cite book | url = http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=billion%2cthousand+million%2cmilliard&year_start=1808&year_end=1967&a
Numeral_systems Numerals