Whole Numbers vs Integers

Whole numbers and integers are two groups of numbers used in mathematical calculations.

Whole Numbers

Whole numbers are numbers starting from 0 and moving up forever. A set of whole numbers looks like this:

{0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,…}

They thus include 0 and every natural number. In another way, whole numbers include 0 and all positive numbers. However, they do not include fractions or decimals.

They can be shown on a number line as:

Examples

0, 5, 111, and 1340 are all whole numbers, but ½, 2.1, and -9 are not whole numbers.

Integers

An integer is a number that is without a fractional or a decimal part. It includes all positive numbers {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,…}, negative numbers {…−1, −2,−3, −4, -5, -6,…}, and zero {0}. Thus all whole numbers are integers. Taking together, a set of integers looks like this:

{…,-6, -5,-4,-3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,…}

They can be shown on a number line as:

Examples

−16, −9, 0, 1, and 55 are all integers, but ½, 2.1, and 4.5 are not integers.

Thus the main difference is that all whole numbers are integers, but all integers are not whole numbers. The difference can be well represented using a Venn diagram:

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