Money Matters: Banknotes Around the World

Vertical v Horizontal Banknote Designs

Of the c. 1,000 circulating banknotes in the world from 166 issuing authorities, 35 denominations from eight issuers have a vertical (portrait) orientation on both the front and the reverse, 14 denominations from two issuers on the front only, and 54 denominations from 10 issuers on the reverse only.

Five of the eight currencies with a portrait orientation on both the front and back are polymer, and one is on a composite substrate. Six of the eight are from the Americas (North and South).

Of the two issuers with a vertical orientation on the front only, both are printed on paper.

And of the 10 issuers with a vertical orientation on the back, four are from the Americas, five from Asia (skewed by the inclusion of the three different note issuing banks in Hong Kong) and one from Europe. All bar one are paper.

So, in total that’s 103 denominations from 20 issuers with a portrait orientation on the front, back or both. Half are polymer or composite, and the other half are paper. If one considers that non-paper banknotes make up around 25% of all circulating notes in terms of the number of denominations, then this suggests a much strong bias towards vertical orientation among the non-paper substrates.