1,001
1,001 is the number in One Thousand and One Nights, and a common way of saying 'a great many'.
- Odd
- Composite
Where 1,001 fits
Why 1,001 is special
1,001 is a number chosen for its effect rather than its count. The Arabic collection's title uses it the way English uses 'a thousand and one uses' — to mean more than you would care to enumerate. The framing story has Scheherazade telling tales across those nights to postpone her execution, and the collection has no single fixed contents.
1,001 connects to:
- historical years — appears in
Same number, different meanings
How 1,001 is understood across different contexts — never implying one meaning because of another.
- Mathematics
1,001 is a number chosen for its effect rather than its count. The Arabic collection's title uses it the way English uses 'a thousand and one uses' — to mean more than you would care to enumerate. The framing story has Scheherazade telling tales across those nights to postpone her execution, and the collection has no single fixed contents.
- History
Antoine Galland's French translation of 1704–1717 was the route by which the collection reached Europe, and it did not merely translate: Galland added Aladdin and Ali Baba, which appear in no known early Arabic manuscript and which he attributed to a Syrian storyteller he met in Paris. The stories most associated with the title in English are therefore additions made in the course of its transmission, and the collection has never had fixed contents in any language.
- Culture
The title Alf Layla wa-Layla uses 1,001 the way English uses 'a thousand and one things to do' — as an idiom for more than one would count. The collection has no fixed contents; stories including Aladdin and Ali Baba were added by an eighteenth-century French translator and appear in no early Arabic manuscript.
1,001 is part of
Factors & digit properties
- Divisors (8)
- 1, 7, 11, 13, 77, 91, 143, 1001
- Prime factorisation
- 7 × 11 × 13
- Digit sum
- 2
- Digital root
- 2
Representations
- Decimal
- 1001
- Scientific notation
- 1.001 × 10^3
Roman numerals
M I
Binary
1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 1
1 × 512 + 1 × 256 + 1 × 128 + 1 × 64 + 1 × 32 + 0 × 16 + 1 × 8 + 0 × 4 + 0 × 2 + 1 × 1 = 1,001
Octal
1 7 5 1
1 × 512 + 7 × 64 + 5 × 8 + 1 × 1 = 1,001
Hexadecimal
3 e 9
3 × 256 + e × 16 + 9 × 1 = 1,001
Read as powers of two: 512 + 256 + 128 + 64 + 32 + 8 + 1 = 1,001.
In historical numeral systems
Egyptian
1 lotus, 1 stroke
1 × 1,000 + 1 × 1 = 1,001. The signs are simply repeated and added; where they sit on the line is a matter of layout, not value.
Babylonian
1 corner wedge + 6 vertical wedges (sixties place), 4 corner wedges + 1 vertical wedge (units place)
16 × 60 + 41 = 1001. Places are separated by a space on the tablet, with the higher place written first.
Systems that simply cannot reach this value are left out. Where a script needs a font most readers do not have, the reading is given instead of the glyphs — see number systems for each system in full.
Other mathematical patterns
- Palindromic number
- Deficient number
- Pentagonal number
Related numbers & connections
1001 is a year in the 11th century, in the 1000s.
Numbers Around Us
- appears inHistorical years
why?
Strength 0.50, confidence "high".
History
Antoine Galland's French translation of 1704–1717 was the route by which the collection reached Europe, and it did not merely translate: Galland added Aladdin and Ali Baba, which appear in no known early Arabic manuscript and which he attributed to a Syrian storyteller he met in Paris. The stories most associated with the title in English are therefore additions made in the course of its transmission, and the collection has never had fixed contents in any language.
DocumentedHistoryPeriod: 1704–1717In 1001, Mahmud of Ghazni began the raids into northern India that would recur for a quarter of a century (South Asia).
DocumentedHistoryGeography: South AsiaPeriod: 1001
Culture
The title Alf Layla wa-Layla uses 1,001 the way English uses 'a thousand and one things to do' — as an idiom for more than one would count. The collection has no fixed contents; stories including Aladdin and Ali Baba were added by an eighteenth-century French translator and appear in no early Arabic manuscript.
DocumentedCultureCulture: Arabic literary tradition
Mathematics
1001 factors as 7 × 11 × 13, and that single fact gives a divisibility test for all three primes at once: group a number's digits in threes from the right and alternately add and subtract the groups. If the result divides by 7, 11 or 13, so does the original. The test works because 1001 is one more than 1,000, so every group of three digits contributes with an alternating sign — the same mechanism that makes 999 the denominator of three-digit repeating decimals.
DocumentedMathematics
Common questions
How can you test whether a number divides by 7?
Group its digits in threes from the right and alternately add and subtract the groups; if the result divides by 7, so does the original. The same test works for 11 and 13, because 1001 = 7 × 11 × 13 and every group of three digits therefore contributes with an alternating sign.
Are there really 1001 nights?
The title uses the number the way English uses 'a thousand and one things to do' — to mean more than anyone would count. The collection has never had fixed contents, and the stories most associated with it in English, Aladdin and Ali Baba, appear in no known early Arabic manuscript: Antoine Galland added them to his French translation of 1704–1717, attributing them to a Syrian storyteller he met in Paris.
Is 1,001 a prime number?
No, 1,001 is not prime.
What are the factors of 1,001?
The factors of 1,001 are 1, 7, 11, 13, 77, 91, 143, 1001.
What is 1,001 in Roman numerals?
1,001 in Roman numerals is MI.
About this page's data
Mathematical facts:computed directly from the number's value — nothing to source or verify externally.
Contextual records: 4 reviewer-confirmed records, sourced and reviewed before publication.
Last reviewed: 15 July 2026