Percents

Percent literally means parts per one hundred.

Percents provide a way for us to standardized and measure situations in nature, business, populations, and elsewhere. Percents allow us to compare portions of a whole. They are based on the number 100.

Consider the square in Figure 1.

This square represents a whole or 100%.
The entire square is filled, so we say it is 100%.

We can divide this one square into 100 smaller squares of equal size.

The larger square still represents a whole
or 100%.
As in Figure 1, 100% of Figure 2 is filled, but in Figure 2, we can see that by 100% we mean 100 small squares of 100 are shaded.

The square in Figure 3 represents 78%.

Of the one hundred small squares, 78 are shaded. 78 out of 100 indicates 78% by the definition of percent.