A lakh (also written lac, and lackh in an Indian english language news source, India PR Wire, 8 Oct '08) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; 10⁵). It is widely used both in official and other contexts in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Pakistan, and is often used in Indian English.

This system of measurement also introduces separators into numbers in a place that is different from that which is common in certain other number systems. For example, 30 lakh, which is to say 3 million, would be written as 30,00,000 instead of 3,000,000. In this system of counting, a hundred lakhs make a crore, which is ten million.

In India, one lakh is written as 1,00,000. In most other parts of the world, the comma appears every three positions, so a lakh would usually be written as 100,000 outside India.

In India, the first comma appears after three places, but after every two places thereafter.

Examples of the Indian comma system: 12,12,12,123    5,05,000    7,00,00,00,000.

The same examples in the Western system: 121,212,123    505,000    7,000,000,000

Etymology and regional variants

• Assamese: লাখ lakh
• Bengali: লাখ lakh or লক্ষ lokkho
• Gujarati: લાખ lākh
• Hindi लाख lākh
• Japanese: 洛叉 rakusha
• Kannada: ಲಕ್ಷ lakṣa
• Malayalam: ലക്ഷം lakṣam
• Mandarin: 洛叉 luòchā
• Marathi: लाख lākh or लक्ष lakṣa
• Nepali: लाख lākh
• Pashto: لک lakh
• Punjabi: ਲੱਖ lākh
• Swahili: laki or lakhi
• Tamil : இலட்சம் laṭcham
• Telugu: లక్ష lakṣa
• Urdu: لکھ lakh or natasha

See also

• Crore (= 100 lakh)
• Names of numbers in English
• Names of large numbers