Cheesie Mack

Money÷100 (The stuff on this webpage was mentioned on page 26 in my book.)

Countries with money that doesn’t break into hundredths.

If you already read Cheesie Mack Is Not a Genius or Anything, you know that a very special coin is an important part of the story. While I was writing about coins, I wondered whether any country breaks its money into anything other than 100 pieces?

So I wrote:

pennyThe word “cent” is almost the same as the word “century” (one hundred years, duh!) and means that there are one hundred of them in every dollar. I don’t know where the word “penny” comes from—and neither does anyone else. I looked it up. But there are pennies in England, and I’m guessing that there are one hundred of them to the pound or euro or whatever the people in England use for money. I wonder if every country uses money that breaks into one hundred smaller pieces. If you know of a country that doesn’t, please go to my website. I’m making a list.

Canadian pennyHere’s what I found out. In North America, money is split into hundredths:

  • 1 dollar (USA) = 100 cents
  • 1 dollar (Canadian) = 100 cents
  • 1 peso (Mexican) = 100 centavos
    I have visited Canada and Mexico on vacation.

The Canadian dollar and the US dollar are worth almost the same amount, so American and Canadian pennies (which is what people in both countries usually call their one-cent coins) are just about equal in value. The Mexican peso, however, is worth only about eight cents (or at least it was when I wrote this), so:

  1. It takes 12 or 13 centavos to be equal to just about one cent (US or Canadian).
  2. mex5c19981And because one centavo is worth so little, the smallest Mexican coin is five centavos, which is equal to less than one cent! In fact, even the five- and ten-centavo coins are rarely used. I have heard that the 50-centavo coin is the smallest in regular circulation.
  3. Therefore, even though Mexico breaks its peso into 100 centavos, there’s really no such thing as one centavo.

So, Mexico sort of does count.But really sort of doesn't!

If you know of a country that does not break its currency into hundredths, please let me know by commenting below.

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Mystery, mice, and money at the end of fifth grade!

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  2. hey,cheesie, I’m a nusimasist and I don’t have any currencys that split up into hundreths, except chinese yuan.

    1. Here’s what it says in Wikipedia:
      “One yuan is divided into 10 jiao. One jiao is divided into 10 fen.”
      That means there are 100 fen in each yuan.

    1. Nope. I just looked it up and it says “The shekel is divided into 100 agora.” And one shekel is worth about 29 cents, which means a 10 agorot (plural) coin is worth about 3 US cents.

  5. Hong Kong Special Administrative Region 香港特别行政區 (a.k.a. Hong Kong, 香港, and HK):

    In Chinese, the smallest coin available is 一毫, which is 1/10 of a dollar 一元. In the past HK used to have 一仙, which is 1/100 of a dollar 一元, but that was only when the value of money was greater.

    Another point to note, that is in English, they still call it 10 cents/1 cent.

    Therefore, HK transformed from a region (NOT COUNTRY) with money that breaks into hundredths into a region with money that doesn’t break into hundredths.

    2. I lived in Hong Kong for 9 years. I hereby prove that is true.
      Also, side note, Chinese yuan has the same system.

    4. PS- We used to have cents, but that was scrapped in 1995. The five-cent piece in 1979(I know, strange, right?). Very confusingly: 1 cent came in notes, while 5-cent came in coins. The next smallest bill was $10, but $20 from 1992-2003.

  6. A Rwandan dollar is not 100 cents it is actually 70 cents to a us dollar, nice books cheese and keep writing them! 😉

    1. Huh? I looked it up online, and I found that Rwanda has francs, not dollars. And their franc is divided into 100 centimes.

  7. Everyone: TCK means Third Culture Kid. I live somewhere where both my parent’s passport aren’t from. P.S Peso is used in Mexico and the Philippines.

  9. I’m american/korean and I still don’t get their money!I wish all countrys’ money was the same as ours. (even if they can turn out interesting.)

    1. My aunt lives in Australia. Their money is much more beautiful than ours. And the bills get slightly bigger the more they are worth. I think that’s so blind people can tell what bills they are holding.

    2. Sydney, I am familiar with WON becuz I am in Kor.South. There’s 1000 WON which is basically like a dollar. And then there is 10000 WON which is…a lot of money.

  10. Singapore used to but stopped now. Now, the smallest amt per coin is $0.05!

    1. Kind of right.
      I looked on Wikipedia and it said Singapore had “6.71 million 1 cent coins…in circulation as of 1 December 2011, but [they] are no longer issued since 2003.” So really, the Singapore dollar is still sort of divided into 100 cents.

  11. Iraq breaks it into 1,000, and so does Kosovo and Libya. But Madagascar’s Khoums break into fifths!

    2. Great research, Ellieroo!

      You are RIGHT about the Iraqi dinar. It breaks into 1,000 fils…although nobody uses fils anymore.
      I don’t think you are right about Kosovo. They’ve been using the euro since 2002. Previously Kosovo used the Yugoslavia dinar, which broke into 100 para.
      But you are

        absolutely right

      about Madagascar. The Malagasy ariary (Madagascar) is the weirdest. It is subdivided into 5 iraimbilanja!

    1. Nope. I looked it up. A yuan (not yan) is divided into 10 jiao. And one jiao is divided into 10 fen. So actually, there are 100 fen to a yuan.

  17. Hey Cheesie, I looked it up and I found that the country of Mauritania uses a base currency of ouguiya which divides into a sub-unit of only 5 khoums.

  18. the Rio in japan’s money does not split into 100 i do not know what it does split up into though sorry.

  19. Madagascar!

    I checked it on Wikipedia, too… this is what it said about it:
    The ariary is the currency of Madagascar. It is subdivided into 5 iraimbilanja and is one of only two non-decimal currencies currently circulating (the other is the Mauritanian ouguiya).

    So I guess that there’s one other, too… wherever uses that Mauritanian ouguiya thingy.

  21. Umm … well I’m kinda stuck here. I live in NZ and … well … we have dollars and then if you break it up into hundredths then you get into cents but the thing is … well … we don’t have 1 cents … 2 cents or … cents … so I’m stuck.

    1. Nope. Greenland uses the krone from Denmark, and one krone is subdivided into 100 øre.

    1. The won is the currency of South Korea. A single won is divided into 100 jeon (so you are sort of incorrect).
      BUT…the jeon is no longer used for everyday transactions (so you are sort of correct).
      MY CONCLUSION: I think you are more correct than incorrect.

    2. I am south koren but i never heard about jeon so that is cool.
      나는한국인 인 대 나는 전 이라는 돈 은안 들어봣 어
      Korean won is spelled 원

    1. Yep, I know. Then it’ll be one of a very few countries that do not divide into hundredths.

    1. This is so cool! You are correct. I looked it up, and there are 1,000 baiza to each rial. Hooray! This is the first country (except for ancient Rome…which sort of doesn’t count).

    1. No way…100 pence to the pound. But 51 years ago, you would’ve been correct! Prior to 1971, the pound was divided into 20 shillings and each shilling into 12 pence, making 240 pence to the pound.

    1. Nope.
      Not Armenia. I looked it up and the Armenian dram, which is their monetary unit is divided into 100 luma.
      And sort of not Lebanon. The Lebanese pound is their currency unit of Lebanon. It is divided into 100 piastres. BUT…no one uses the piastres anymore! So you’re kind of correct.

    1. Paris is not a country. And France uses the euro. And there are 100 euro cents to the euro.

    3. In my history class, the teacher asked what country the city of Baghdad was in, and some clueless person said:

      “France!…no wait, that’s a city!”

      And then the teacher facepalmed.

    1. If you’re talking about Pangaea, that land existed 300 million years ago! Long before there were any humans anywhere!

    1. Nope. First, Yugoslavia no longer exists. And when it did, its money was the dinar, which was divided into 100 para. (I looked it up.)

    1. About 80 yen to the dollar as of today. Want to know how many Albanian leks or Panamanian balboas there are in a dollar? Here’s a website that converts any currency into any other: http://www.xe.com/ucc/

  42. The Japanese yen does sort of break into hundredths and even thousandths but the only bills and coins Japan makes are marked “yen” and not fractions of the yen.

    Coins. ¥1, ¥5, ¥10, ¥50, ¥100, ¥500
    Banknotes ¥1000, ¥2000, ¥5000, ¥10000

    The Japanese yen (円 or 圓 en) (sign: ¥; code: JPY) is the official currency of Japan. It is the third most-traded currency in the foreign exchange market after the United States dollar and the euro.[1] It is also widely used as a reserve currency after the U.S. dollar, the euro and the pound sterling. As is common when counting in East Asia, large quantities of yen are often counted in multiples of 10,000 (man, 万) in the same way as values in Western countries are often quoted in thousands.

    1. Just like I replied about Taiwanese money, you’re sort of right about Japan. The yen officially divides into 100 sen, but sen coins haven’t been used since 1953. So really, one yen can’t be divided into anything. Good job!

  44. well actuality chikanoria dosent (most likely because its my litte made up world) <:

    1. Nope. North Korea use the won which is divided into 100 chon. South Korea also uses the won, which they divide into 100 jeon.

    1. Nope. I looked them up.
      The Turkish lira is divided into 100 kuruş. The Russian ruble is subdivided into 100 kopeks. And the Indian rupee is subdivided into 100 paise.

    1. Really? I looked it up in Wikipedia and it says that Morroco breaks 1 Dirham in 100 SANTIMAT. Maybe you have other info?

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