← All insights

Ne vs Lea: how cotton count and linen count actually compare

A cotton supplier quotes you 40s. A linen mill quotes you 40 Lea. They are not the same yarn — and they are not even close. Count systems are where most fibre-to-fibre comparisons quietly go wrong, because the number looks familiar but the unit underneath it changes.

Count tells you fineness, not thickness

Both Ne and Lea are indirect count systems: they measure how much length you get per unit of weight. The higher the number, the more length per pound — which means a finer, thinner yarn. This is the opposite of direct systems like Tex or denier, where a higher number means a heavier, thicker yarn.

So the rule of thumb is the same within each system: a 60s cotton is finer than a 30s cotton; a 60 Lea linen is finer than a 30 Lea linen. The trap is comparing across systems, because the underlying hank length is different.

What Ne and Lea each measure

Both are “hanks per pound” counts — but a cotton hank and a linen lea are different lengths, so the same count number describes a different yarn.

The conversion that matters

Because the cotton hank (840 yd) is exactly 2.8× the linen lea (300 yd), the two counts convert with a single factor for the same physical yarn:

• Lea = Ne × 2.8 — a 20 Ne cotton yarn has the same fineness as a 56 Lea linen yarn.
• Ne = Lea ÷ 2.8 — a 40 Lea linen yarn is as fine as a ~14 Ne cotton yarn.

That second example is the eye-opener: 40 Lea linen is a fairly coarse yarn in cotton terms, nothing like the fine 40s cotton a shirting buyer pictures. The headline number is identical; the cloth is worlds apart.

Tex is the neutral referee

When you need to compare cotton and linen — or anything else — on equal footing, convert both to Tex (grams per 1,000 metres). Tex is a direct system, so higher = heavier, and it works for every fibre:

• Tex = 590.5 ÷ Ne  (cotton count to Tex)
• Tex = 1,654 ÷ Lea  (linen count to Tex)

Run both numbers through Tex and the comparison becomes honest. Here is how some common counts line up:

Yarn	Count	≈ Tex	Reads as
Cotton	40 Ne	14.8	Fine shirting
Cotton	20 Ne	29.5	Mid-weight / bottoms
Linen	60 Lea	27.6	Fine linen shirting
Linen	40 Lea	41.4	Mid-weight linen
Linen	25 Lea	66.2	Heavy / textured linen

A “40” in cotton and a “40” in linen share a digit and nothing else. When fibres differ, convert to Tex before you compare.

Why linen is rarely spun as fine as cotton

You will almost never see linen at the equivalent of a fine 80s or 100s cotton. The flax fibre is longer but stiffer and less uniform than cotton, so very high counts are difficult and expensive to spin and weave. That is why fine linen shirting tops out around 50–60 Lea (≈ 18–21 Ne), while cotton shirting routinely runs 40–100 Ne. Expecting linen to behave like a 60s cotton sets up a sampling disappointment before the loom even starts.

What to put on your tech pack

Count is only half a spec. For every woven style we ask buyers to lock:

• Fibre, then count in its native system. Cotton in Ne, linen in Lea — don't translate the number and risk a transcription error down the line.
• Single or ply. 2/40 Ne (two 40s plied) behaves very differently from a 40/1 single; always state the fold.
• Warp and weft counts. They are often different, and the pairing drives the hand of the cloth.
• The resulting GSM and weave, so the count is anchored to a finished-fabric target rather than left floating.

Lock those and a count quote stops being ambiguous — everyone is talking about the same yarn, whichever fibre it's spun from.