XXVI Roman Numerals

What is XXVI in Roman Numerals?

The Roman numeral XXVI is equal to the number 26.

Although it contains four letters, the equation XXVI is a fairly simple one to convert into our modern-day numbers. This is because every Roman numeral that comes after the preceding one is either of the same or lesser value. As a result, there is no need for any to be subtracted from each other, as would be the case if a smaller numeral was written before a larger one. So, to find the value of XXVI, we just need to convert each letter to the corresponding number, and add them all together.

By taking a look at the Roman numeral chart on our main Roman numerals page, we can see that:

X = 10
V = 5
I = 1

Now that we know this, we have all the information we require to solve this Roman numeral equation. To find the answer and convert the Roman numeral XXVI, it is just:

10 (X) + 10 (X) + 5 (V) +1 (I) = 26.

As mentioned above, because there was no smaller value in front of a larger one, such as in the case of Roman numeral numbers like LIV (54) or IV (4) for example, we do not need to make use of the subtraction principle and start taking away smaller numbers from larger ones. This makes our task of converting the Roman numeral much easier!

Related Page: IV or IIII? - Roman Clock Numerals

Math Questions Containing the Roman Numeral XXVI

Why not have a go at the below math questions to test your knowledge of Roman numerals? Each of the questions contain the Roman numeral XXVI in them somewhere.

$A math question being asked in a classroom$

1. What is XIX plus XXVI?

Wow, there are quite a few X’s in this math equation! Fortunately, it doesn’t really matter how many there are as we already know that the Roman numeral X is equal to the number 10. Plus, we know what every other letter in the problem (i.e. V and I) equates to, so we should be able to solve this one fairly easily.

The only potential spanner in the works which may trip us up is the first part: XIX.

The first letter is fine, X = 10, but because the next letter, I (which equals 1), is smaller in value than the one that comes next (in this case, X again), then we have to subtract 1 from 10, which gives us 9.

This means that XIX needs to be worked out as:

10 (X) + 9 (IX, which is 1 subtracted from 10) = 19.

Now that we know that XIX = 19, then the original question can be written as:

19 (XIX), plus 26 (we already know that XXVI = 26), which gives us the answer to the question, which is 45 (or XLV in Roman numerals).

2. What is XXVI minus IX?

This question contains a need to use the subtraction principle again, but happily, we can use the information we learnt in the question above to work out the answer much faster.

We saw in the Roman numeral XIX that we had so subtract 1 from 10 to get 9 when we worked out the Roman numeral for 19. So in fact, we already know that IX = 9, which means we can get straight onto solving the puzzle.

It is simply a case of subtracting 9 (IX) from 26 (XXVI) to give us the answer of 17, which is XVII in Roman numerals.

3. What is XXVI divided by II?

This one is a nice and simple one. It is just 26 (XXVI) divided by 2 (II), which gives us the answer of 13 (XIII in Roman numerals). There, nice and straightforward.

4. What is XXVI multiplied by XLIX?

Ouch. After an easy one above comes a very difficult one. We know that XXVI equals 26, but the other Roman numeral equation, XLIX, contains not one but TWO requirements for the subtractive principle! Although it may seem hard at first, the best way of approaching it is to split it in half into two separate math problems...

The first part, XL, is only a matter of subtracting 10 (X) from 50 (L). We know from the Roman numeral chart that was linked to earlier, or by looking at our complete list of Roman numerals 1-100, that the Roman numeral L = 50. So, the first part of the number is:

10 (X) subtracted from 50 (L), which equals 40.

Ordinarily, we would next need to work out the second part, IX, but we already know from earlier that this equals 9. So all we need to do now is add the two separate parts of 40 (XL) and 9 (IX) together to discover that the seemingly complicated Roman numeral of XLIX is not so scary and equals the number 49.

With this information, the last thing we need to do is the actual multiplication (which some would argue is the hardest part if you are proficient in converting and understanding Roman numerals!). It is:

26 (XXVI) multiplied by 49 (XLIX), which equals 1,274.

In Roman numerals, this is written as the long and complicated-looking MCCLXXIV. If M = 1,000 and C = 100, can you figure out why MCCLXXIV equals 1,274? Watch out for the subtractive principle at the end!