How Many Different Dollar Currencies Are There in The World?
How many different countries use the name “dollar” as the name of their national currency? The United States Dollar is not the only dollar currency in the world. The name of the currency “dollar” has a fascinating history and many countries want to be a part of that name. There are at least 22 different kinds of currencies currently in use in the world today that use the name “dollar”.
Here is a list of national currencies that use the name “dollar” in them.
- East Caribbean Dollar in Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St.Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and The Grenadines, Tuvalu
- Australian dollar in Australia, Kiribati and Nauru
- Bahamanian dollar
- Barbados dollar
- Belize dollar
- Brunei dollar
- Canadian dollar
- US Dollar used as the official currency in Ecuador, El Salvador and Palau
- Fiji dollar
- Guyana dollar
- Hong Kong dollar
- Jamaican dollar
- Liberian dollar
- Namibian dollar
- New Zealand dollar
- Singapore dollar
- Solomon islands dollar
- Surinamese dollar
- New Taiwan dollar
- Trinidad and Tobago dollar
- Tuvaluan dollar
- Zimbabwean dollar
Origin of the Name Dollar
The dollar originates in the coins minted as Joachimsthaler in the modern Czech Republic in 1520. In German thal or tal refers to a valley and signified Joachimstal valley, where the silver for the coin was mined.
The name dollar came into the English language through the Dutch and spread in the original thirteen colonies of the United States during the early 17th and 18th centuries. Spanish dollars were the commonest currency in the USA by the American revolution in 1776.
Most of the countries that have taken the name dollar as their currency do not share a common history with the Spanish or American dollar. Many of them like Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Jamaica, Namibia and Zimbabwe adopted the dollar after moving to a decimal based currency system away from a British sterling based system.
Peculiarities of the Usage of the Dollar Sign
The dollar sign $ appeared on a United States coin for the first time only in February 2007.
In USA and English-speaking Canada, the dollar symbol is put in front of the number as in $5 but for the cents the practice is to put the cent sign after the number, as in 5¢.
Nicaragua uses the dollar sign (written as C$) for their currency, the córdoba. The Tongan currency, pa’anga also uses the $ sign.
Officially gold and silver dollar coins are not minted anymore. But the US Mint still makes beautiful $1 denomination coins in silver and $50 in gold, mainly for collectors.
The Worst Valued Dollar Currency
The worst valued dollar currency title belongs to the Zimbabwe dollar. After the move to a decimal system, when it was introduced in 1980, it was a hard currency replacing the Rhodesian dollar, which was 2 dollars to a British pound. Horrendous inflation (231,150,888.87% in one month July 2004) and crash of the economy ruined the Zimbabwe dollar. Banknotes of one hundred billion dollars would buy only three eggs then. At that time one UK pound was 1.2 trillion Zimbabwe dollars.
Zimbabwe removed 12 zeroes from the currency and eventually scrapped the currency on 12.4.2009. Only foreign currencies are used there nowadays.
13 comments
I find the last sentence rather amusing. Imagine a pound against a trillion Zimbabwe dollars. Wow, buying eggs with 100 billion dollars!
So nice Rana. You have decorated your useful writing with different currencies. I enjoyed too much by reading your article. These dollars are the dire need of the world. I appreciate your struggle. Thanks for your share. Voted up
The article nicely traces the history of dollar in various countries.The story of dollar in Zimbabwe in the post-inflation scenario is really pathetic.Thanks.
A greatly informative article, I had no idea Zimbabwe had the worst value dollar!! Never seen a one billion dollar note before :D Great article, buzzing up :D
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Very interesting! Great article.