The von Neumann cardinal assignment is a cardinal assignment that uses ordinal numbers. For a well-orderable set U, we define its cardinal number to be the smallest ordinal number equinumerous to U, using the von Neumann definition of an ordinal number. More precisely:

${\displaystyle |U|=\mathrm {card} (U)=\inf\{\alpha \in \mathrm {ON} \ |\ \alpha =_{c}U\},}$

where ON is the class of ordinals. This ordinal is also called the initial ordinal of the cardinal.

That such an ordinal exists and is unique is guaranteed by the fact that U is well-orderable and that the class of ordinals is well-ordered, using the axiom of replacement. With the full axiom of choice, every set is well-orderable, so every set has a cardinal; we order the cardinals using the inherited ordering from the ordinal numbers. This is readily found to coincide with the ordering via ≤_c. This is a well-ordering of cardinal numbers.