World Monetary Units: An Historical Dictionary, Country By Country

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, this comprehensive reference work covers the monetary systems of 203 countries and four confederations. An introductory chapter explains the arrangement of the information and the conventions that are used for spelling, foreign diction and uncommon monetary symbols and abbreviations. The major section, the dictionary, provides historical and orthographical information for all monetary systems according to country. Chronologies show the evolution of each monetary unit. Orthographies summarize the commonly accepted English spelling of the unit names (singular and plural) as well as known abbreviations and symbols. A glossary lists all the monetary units alphabetically, identifies their countries, and reveals the etymologies of the unit names. The work is augmented with five useful appendices; a guide to major foreign language number systems, an outline of the families of monetary units, a list of more than 340 standard monetary abbreviations and symbols, two tables summarizing the ISO-4217 currency codes, and a list of current central banks and their associated internet sites.