Money was historically an emergent market phenomenon that possessed intrinsic value as a commodity; nearly all contemporary money systems are based on unbacked fiat money without use value. Its value is consequently derived by social convention, having been declared by a government or regulatory entity to be legal tender; that is, it must be accepted as a form of payment within the boundaries of the country, for "all debts, public and private", in the case of the United States dollar.
A currency is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a system of money in common use within a specific environment over time, especially for people in a nation state. Under this definition, the British Pound sterling (￡), euros (€), Japanese yen (￥), and U.S. dollars (US$) are examples of (government-issued) fiat currencies. Currencies may act as stores of value and be traded between nations in foreign exchange markets, which determine the relative values of the different currencies. Currencies in this sense are either chosen by users or decreed by governments, and each type has limited boundaries of acceptance; i.e., legal tender laws may require a particular unit of account for payments to government agencies.
Other definitions of the term currency appear in the respective synonymous articles: banknote, coin, and money. This article uses the definition which focuses on the currency systems of countries. (Full article...)
The Latvian lats (plural: lati, plural genitive: latu, second Latvian lats ISO 4217 currency code: LVL) was the currency of Latvia from 1922 until 1940 and from 1993 until it was replaced by the euro on 1 January 2014. A two-week transition period during which the lats was in circulation alongside the euro ended on 14 January 2014. The lats is abbreviated as Ls and was subdivided into 100 santīmi (singular: santīms; from Frenchcentime), abbreviated as an s after the santīm amount.
Image 20Sino Tibetan silver tangka, dated 58th year of Qian Long era, obverse. Weight 5.57 g. Diameter: 30 mm (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 21A 640 BC one-third staterelectrum coin from Lydia. According to Herodotus, the Lydians were the first people to introduce the use of gold and silver coins. It is thought by modern scholars that these first stamped coins were minted around 650 to 600 BC. (from Money)
Image 22Sino Tibetan silver tangka, dated 58th year of Qian Long era, reverse. Weight 5.57 g. Diameter: 30 mm (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 23A check, used as a means of converting funds in a demand deposit to cash (from Money)
Image 24Song Dynasty Jiaozi, the world's earliest paper money (from Money)
Image 25“Babyal Hoard” type, of the Kuru Janapada (350 - 315 BCE) (from Punch-marked coins)
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