500 euro note rapidly so that in the first 7 years (up to December 2008) there were 530,064,413 five hundred euro banknotes in circulation. Subsequently, the rate of increase was radically slowed. In August 2018, there were approximately 515,000,000 banknotes in circulation (decreased from 614,000,000 in 2015). It is the second least widely circulated denomination, accounting for 2.4% of the total banknotes. It is the largest note measuring 160 × 82 mm and has a purple colour scheme. The five hundred euro banknotes depict bridges and arches/doorways in modern architecture (around the late 20th century). The five hundred euro note contains several complex
Euro banknotes the expansion of the European Union: every member of the EU is depicted on it. The initial series did not include the recent members Cyprus and Malta (Cyprus was off the map to the east and Malta was too small to be depicted.) The Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet features on the Europa series banknotes, as a result of Bulgaria joining the European Union in 2007. Thus this series includes "", which is the Bulgarian spelling for EURO, as well as the abbreviation "" (short for ' in Bulgarian). The new banknotes also feature the Maltese abbreviation BĊE ('), the Hungarian abbreviation