A position measuring instrument including a code carrier having first and second code tracks, each including an identical series of code elements, wherein each of the series of code elements has two subregions with complementary properties. A scanning unit having detectors for scanning code elements, wherein each of the code elements defines one corresponding code word, wherein each of the code words defines an absolute position in the measuring direction, and wherein the detectors form a corresponding scanning signal from each of the two subregions of the series of code elements. An evaluation unit generating one item of code information for each of the series of code elements from each corresponding scanning signal, and forming the corresponding code words from the one item of code information, wherein each of the code words is composed of N and K items of code information from successive code elements of the first and second code tracks, respectively, with N and K being greater than 1.