Base 1
The unary numeral system is the bijective base-1 numeral system. It is the simplest numeral system to represent natural numbers: in order to represent a number N, an arbitrarily chosen symbol representing 1 is repeated N times. For example, the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6... would be represented in this system as
1, 11, 111, 1111, 11111, 111111...These numbers should be distinguished from repunits, which are also written as sequences of ones but have their usual decimal numerical interpretation.
This system is used in tallying. For example, using the tally mark |, the number 3 is represented as |||. In East Asian cultures, the number three is represented as “三” (1 and 2 are represented similarly), a character that is drawn with three strokes. In China and Japan, the character "正" is used to represent "five" in some situations because it is drawn with 5 strokes.
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