Chinese numeral system

The Chinese numeral system is a system of words used to describe numbers in the Chinese language, as well as other languages that use Chinese characters, primarily Japanese.

Basic Numbers
The Chinese numeral system is a positional decimal system. There are characters for the numbers from zero through ten, and then characters for the powers of 10 thereafter. In Chinese, the power-of-ten numbers are used as suffixes to the basic numerals. For example, 二十 is 20, because 十 marks the place value of the 二. 一百二十三 is 123, because 百 is prefixed with a 一, 十 is prefixed with a 二, and 三 is at the end of the number. If the place value is 一十, then the 一 is usually omitted, so 13 is 十三, not 一十三.

In Japanese, a 一 can be omitted before any place-value marker, not just 十, so 123 is just 百二十三.

The symbols 十, 百, and 千 are themselves repeated after 万, so 100,000 is 十万, and 1,230,000 is 一百二十三万.

Large Numbers
Numbers larger than 亿 are not generally used in daily life. The Wujing Suanshu defines a series of numbers larger than 亿, and assigns three different scales to them: In modern times, these numbers have been redefined such that each character after 万 is valued 104 (一万) times the previous one, giving a fourth system.
 * 1) The "lower numbers" (下數), in which each character after 万 is valued 10 times the previous one. In this system, 亿 is equal to 105.
 * 2) The "middle numbers" (中數), in which each character after 亿 is valued 108 (一亿) times the previous one.
 * 3) The "upper numbers" (上數), in which each character after 万 is the square of the previous one.

The higher numerals are as follows: The upper numbers are the same as Knuth's -yllion system, with 亿 being one myllion, 兆 being one byllion, and so on.

Larger numbers
Numbers larger than 载 appear in some Buddhist texts, which are not defined in the Wujing Suanshu. In Chinese, they are not used; however, some of them have been standardized in Japanese usage. A list is given below with the hypothetical values that the upper numbers would have if the system in thet Wujing Suanshu were extended to include these numbers.