Cardinal numbers are the fundamental counting numbers used to express the quantity of objects, answering the question "how many?". They represent total amounts rather than position or order (which are handled by ordinal numbers like "first" or "second").

Cardinal numbers are generally whole numbers (natural numbers or positive integers).

They include whole numbers used for counting, such as 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.. Quantity: They represent how many elements are in a set.