Roman Numerals Chart: 1 to 100, Tens, Hundreds and Thousands

What are the Roman numerals from 1 to 100?

They run from I for 1 to C for 100, and all 100 are in the chart below. Each row gives the number, the numeral and the sum that numeral stands for.

Roman numerals use seven letters: I is 1, V is 5, X is 10, L is 50, C is 100, D is 500 and M is 1000.

Every numeral from 1 to 100 is written with five symbols: I, V, X, L and C.

The chart starts at 1, not 0. Roman numerals have no symbol for zero and no place value: a symbol is worth the same wherever it stands. Writers who needed a zero used the Latin word nulla, and from about 725 the letter N.

Read the third column as plain arithmetic. A bracket is a subtraction, where a smaller symbol stands in front of a larger one, so XLIX is (50 - 10) + (10 - 1). Everything outside a bracket is added.

Each row has its own address: the row for 49 is at #49, and #XLIX reaches it too.

What is the easiest way to learn Roman numerals?

Learn the nine forms for 1 to 9, then reuse them. The chart below splits every standard numeral into its places.

Each place reuses the same nine shapes with its own three symbols: I, V and X for units, X, L and C for tens, and C, D and M for hundreds.

Take one row across: 7 is VII, 70 is LXX and 700 is DCC. The shape is the same each time; only the symbols move up a column.

30 standard forms write every value from 1 to 3,999: nine for the units, nine for the tens, nine for the hundreds and three for the thousands.

That is the whole memory load. A four-digit numeral is at most four cells of this chart set side by side, largest place first, and a place whose digit is 0 writes nothing at all.

What are the four rules of Roman numerals?

Four rules cover every numeral on this page. The first two say how a numeral is put together; the last two say which forms are allowed.

1. Read a Roman numeral from left to right and add the symbol values; where a smaller symbol stands before a larger one, subtract it instead, so IV is 4 and IX is 9.
2. A number with two or more decimal digits is written by setting down the numeral for each digit, from the highest place to the lowest.
3. Only I, X and C are ever subtracted, and only from the next two larger symbols. That gives six subtractive forms and no others: IV, IX, XL, XC, CD, CM.
4. I, X, C and M may stand up to three times in a row; V, L and D are never repeated.

You will still meet one exception to the fourth rule, on clock faces. IV is the standard form of 4, but IIII is the older additive form and clock faces have used it since the late 14th century.

Reading MMCDXLIX with the chart

Split the numeral where the place changes: MM, CD, XL, IX. Find each piece in the place chart above. MM is 2000 in the thousands column, CD is 400, XL is 40 and IX is 9. Then add them.

MMCDXLIX is MM 2000 + CD 400 + XL 40 + IX 9, which is 2449.

To check a numeral you have read, the Roman numerals to number converter prints the same place groups under its answer.

Why is 3999 the highest Roman numeral?

It is the highest value the seven standard symbols can write, not the highest Roman numeral there is.

With the seven standard symbols the largest value you can write is 3,999, MMMCMXCIX. Beyond that Roman numerals take a vinculum - an overline that multiplies the numeral by 1,000, so V with an overline is 5,000.

MMMCMXCIX is the largest value the place chart can build: MMM in the thousands, then CM, XC and IX. A fourth M would break the repeat rule, and none of the seven symbols is worth 5,000.

Type a larger value into the number to Roman numerals converter and it names the limit instead of guessing at an overline, because it writes the standard symbols only.

Every row of this chart is written by the same numeral engine the Roman numeral converters run, and the site is not published if the chart and either converter disagree.