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Roman Numbers

The numbers that we normally use (1, 2, 3 etc) are called "Arabic numbers". But we sometimes use another system for writing numers - "Roman numbers". The Romans used letters of the alphabet to represent numbers, and you will occasionally see this system used for page numbers, clock faces, dates of movies etc.

The letters used in Roman numbers are:

I = 1
V = 5
X = 10
L = 50
C = 100
D = 500
M = 1000

In general, letters are placed in decreasing order of value, eg XVI = 16. Letters can be repeated one or two times to increase value, eg XX = 20, XXX = 30. Letters cannot be repeated three times, so XXXX is not used for 40. In this case, XL = 40 (50 minus 10).

Examples

The Introduction is on page vii = The Introduction is on page 7
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1	I	i
2	II	ii
3	III	iii
4	IV	iv
5	V	v
6	VI	vi
7	VII	vii
8	VIII	viii
9	IX	ix

10	X	x
11	XI	xi
12	XII	xii
13	XIII	xiii
14	XIV	xiv
15	XV	xv
16	XVI	xvi
17	XVII	xvii
18	XVIII	xviii
19	XIX	xix
20	XX	xx
21	XXI	xxi
22	XXII	xxii
23	XXIII	xxiii
30	XXX	xxx
40	XL	xl

50	L	l
60	LX	lx
70	LXX	lxx
80	LXXX	lxxx
90	XC	xc
100	C	c
200	CC	cc
300	CCC	ccc
400	CD	cd
500	D	d
1000	M	m

Arabic-Roman Converter

You can use the tool below to convert an Arabic number into a Roman number:

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