Roman numerals

The system of Roman numerals is a numeral system originating in ancient Rome, and was adapted from Etruscan numerals. The system used in antiquity was slightly modified in the Middle Ages to produce the system we use today.

Table of Roman numerals

The "modern" Roman numerals, post-Victorian era, are shown below:

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An accurate way to write large numbers in Roman numerals is to handle first the thousands, then hundreds, then tens, then units.

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Example: the number 1988.

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One thousand is M, nine hundred is CM, eighty is LXXX, eight is VIII.

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Put it together: MCMLXXXVIII (ⅯⅭⅯⅬⅩⅩⅩⅤⅠⅠⅠ).

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Unicode has a number of characters specifically designated as Roman numerals, as part of the Number Forms range from U+2160 to U+2183. For example, MCMLXXXVIII could alternatively be written as

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ⅯⅭⅯⅬⅩⅩⅩⅤⅠⅠⅠ. This range includes both upper- and lowercase numerals, as well as pre-combined glyphs for numbers up to 12 (Ⅻ or XII), mainly intended for the clock faces for compatibility with non–West-European encodings. The pre-combined glyphs should only be used to represent the individual numbers where the use of individual glyphs is not wanted, and not to replace compounded numbers. Similarly precombined glyphs for 5000 and 10000 exist.

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The Unicode characters are present only for compatibility with other character standards which provide these characters; for ordinary uses, the regular Latin letters are preferred. Displaying these characters requires a user agent that can handle Unicode and a font that contains appropriate glyphs for them.

Related Topics:
Compatibility - User agent - Font

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