Mega (prefix)

Mega (symbol M) is a prefix of the International System of Units indicating a factor of 10⁶, in other words: one million (1,000,000).

This prefix comes from the Greek μεγάλο, which means 'great'.

The prefix is sometimes applied in a non-standard way:

• A megaton equals 1 000 tons. The ton Metric equals 1 000 000 grams, so in fact this unit is equivalent to a teragram.
• The term megabyte is used to designate a megabyte, which is equivalent to 1 000 000 bytes and is confused with a mebibyte, which is equivalent to 1 048 576 (2²⁰) bytes, however for these there are other prefixes, refer to the CEI standard within binary prefixes.