The decimal (base ten or occasionally denary) numeral system has ten as its base. It is the most widely used numeral system, perhaps because humans have ten digits over both hands.

Decimal notation

Decimal notation is the writing of numbers in the base 10 numeral system, which uses various symbols (called digits) for no more than ten distinct values (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9) to represent any numbers, no matter how large or how small. These digits are often used with a decimal separator which indicates the start of a fractional part, and with one of the sign symbols + (positive) or − (negative) in front of the numerals to indicate sign. There are only two truly positional decimal systems in ancient civilization, the Chinese counting rods system and Hindu-Arabic numeric system, both required no more than ten symbols. Other numeric systems require more or fewer symbols.

The decimal system is a positional numeral system; it has positions for units, tens, hundreds, etc. The position of each digit conveys the multiplier (a power of ten) to be used with that digit—each position has a value ten times that of the position to its right.

Ten is the number which is the count of fingers and thumbs on both hands (or toes on the feet). In many languages the word digit or its translation is also the anatomical term referring to fingers and toes. In English, decimal (decimus < Lat.) means tenth, decimate means reduce by a tenth, and denary (denarius < Lat.) means the unit of ten. The symbols for the digits in common use around the globe today are called Arabic numerals by Europeans and Indian numerals by Arabs, the two groups' terms both referring to the culture from which they learned the system. However, the symbols used in different areas are not identical; for instance, Western Arabic numerals (from which the European numerals are derived) differ from the forms used by other Arab cultures.

Alternative notations

Some cultures do, or used to, use other numeral systems, including pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures such as the Maya, who use a vigesimal system (using all twenty fingers and toes), some Nigerians who use several duodecimal (base 12) systems, the Babylonians, who used sexagesimal (base 60), and the Yuki, who reportedly used quaternal (base 4).

Computer hardware and software systems commonly use a binary representation, internally (although a few of the earliest computers, such as ENIAC, did use decimal representation internally). For external use by computer specialists, this binary representation is sometimes presented in the related octal or hexadecimal systems. For most purposes, however, binary values are converted to the equivalent decimal values for presentation to and manipulation by humans.