How to Write 亿 (yì) — Meaning “Hundred million”

Imagine a person (亻) holding a giant hook (乙) that catches one hundred million fish. The hook shape 乙 looks like a bent arm pulling in a massive catch, reminding you that 亿 means a huge number like hundred million.

Write the person radical 亻 first (left-falling stroke, then vertical stroke), then the hook shape 乙: start with a horizontal stroke, then a gentle curve down and a hook upward. Common mistake: making the 乙 too wide or forgetting the final hook — keep it compact and balanced with the left side.

亿 (hundred million) uses 乙 while 什 (what? ten) uses 十 (ten) and 仁 (benevolence) uses 二 (two) as the right component. Visually, 亿 has a curved hook on the right, 什 has a cross, and 仁 has two horizontal lines. Their meanings are unrelated: 亿 is a number, 什 is a question word, and 仁 is a moral concept.

亿 is used for large numbers, especially in economics and population, like 一亿 (100 million) or 亿万 (hundreds of millions). It appears in news about GDP, company valuations, or China's population (over 1.4 billion = 十四亿). Culturally, it reflects the need for a specific word for 100 million, a common scale in Chinese counting.

Common words containing 亿 include: 一亿 (yī yì) — one hundred million; 亿万 (yì wàn) — Hundreds of millions; 十亿 (shí yì) — one billion.