To provide an absolute position detector having a relatively narrow scale width and/or relatively small reading head detector size to a given resolution and absolute range.

An integrated scale track 300' includes a plurality of encoded segments 310. Each encoded segment 310 includes a code part 340 and a periodic part 320. A plurality of periodic parts 310 are perfectly extended in a nominal track width 350 across a measuring axial direction, and a plurality of code parts 340 are located within the same track width. The periodic parts 320 and the code parts 340 are arranged in an alternately repeated line state along the whole length of a scale 110. Each code part 340 is located along the measuring axial direction 112 of the scale 110, and includes a code element area 350 extending along the direction orthogonal to the measuring axial direction 112. The code element area 350 is divided into individual code element sub-areas 350 separated by a plurality of nominal code element boundaries 352.