A currency symbol or currency sign is a graphic symbol used to denote a

currency A currency is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a ''system of money'' in common use within a specific envi ...

unit. Usually it is defined by a monetary authority, such as the national

central bank A central bank, reserve bank, national bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the monetary policy of a country or monetary union. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central bank possesses a monopoly on increasing the mo ...

for the currency concerned. A symbol may be positioned in various ways, according to national convention: before, between or after the numeric amounts: , and . Symbols are neither defined nor listed by international standard

ISO 4217 ISO 4217 is a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that defines alpha codes and numeric codes for the representation of currencies and provides information about the relationships between individ ...

, which only assigns three-letter codes.

Usage

When writing currency amounts, the location of the symbol varies by language. For currencies in English-speaking countries and in most of

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

, the symbol is placed before the amount, as in . In most other countries, including many in Europe and Canada (when using French), the symbol is placed after the amount, as in . Exceptionally, the symbol for the Cape Verdean escudo (like the Portuguese escudo, to which it was formerly pegged) is placed in the

decimal separator FIle:Decimal separators.svg, alt=Four types of separating decimals: a) 1,234.56. b) 1.234,56. c) 1'234,56. d) ١٬٢٣٤٫٥٦., Both a comma and a full stop (or period) are generally accepted decimal separators for international use. The apost ...

position, as in . CV's most recent coin issue is the 200$00 commemorative coin issued in 2005/ref>

Design

Older currency symbols have evolved slowly, often from previous currencies. The modern dollar and peso symbols originated from the mark employed to denote the

Spanish dollar The Spanish dollar, also known as the piece of eight (, , , or ), is a silver coin of approximately diameter worth eight Spanish reales. It was minted in the Spanish Empire following a monetary reform in 1497 with content fine silver. It w ...

, whereas the pound and lira symbols

evolved Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

from the letter L (written until the seventeenth century in

blackletter Blackletter (sometimes black letter or black-letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule or Gothic type, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for ...

type as

\mathfrak

) standing for , a Roman pound of silver. Newly invented currencies and currencies adopting new symbols have symbolism meaningful to their adopter. For example, the euro sign is based on , an archaic form of the Greek

epsilon Epsilon (, ; uppercase , lowercase or ; ) is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a mid front unrounded vowel or . In the system of Greek numerals it also has the value five. It was derived from the Phoenic ...

, to represent Europe; the Indian rupee sign is a blend of the

Latin letter The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

' R' with the

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; in script: , , ) is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent. It is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental systems: alphabets, writing system), based on the ancient ''Brāhmī script, Brā ...

letter ( ra); and the Russian

Ruble sign The ruble sign, , is the currency sign used for the Russian ruble, the official currency of Russia. Its form is a Cyrillic letter Р with an additional horizontal stroke. The design was approved on 11 December 2013 after a public poll that too ...

is based on (the

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

capital letter 'er'). There are other considerations, such as how the symbol is rendered on computers and typesetting. For a new symbol to be used, its

glyph A glyph ( ) is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A ...

s needs to be added to

computer font A computer font is implemented as a digital data file containing a set of graphically related glyphs. A computer font is designed and created using a font editor. A computer font specifically designed for the computer screen, and not for printi ...

s and

keyboard mapping A keyboard layout is any specific physical, visual, or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key-meaning associations (respectively) of a computer keyboard, mobile phone, or other computer-controlled typographic keyboard. Standard keybo ...

s already in widespread use, and

keyboard layout A keyboard layout is any specific physical, visual, or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key-meaning associations (respectively) of a computer keyboard, mobile phone, or other computer-controlled typographic keyboard. Standard keybo ...

s need to be altered or shortcuts added to type the new symbol. For example, the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

was criticized for not considering how the

euro sign The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists of a stylized letter E (or epsilon), crossed by ...

would need to be customized to work in different fonts.Westcott, K. (2009
India seeks rupee status symbol
,

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

10 March 2009, accessed 1 September 2009 The original design was also exceptionally wide. These two factors have led to most type foundries designing customized versions that match the 'look and feel' of the font to which it is to be added, often with reduced width.

List of currency symbols currently in use

Rupee symbols by language

List of historical currency symbols

Some of these symbols may not display correctly. The Unicode CJK Compatibility block contains several square versions of the names of currencies in Japanese

katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...

. They are intended for compatibility with earlier character sets.

Notes

References

{{Currency symbols