Carbon number

{{Short description|Number of carbon atoms in a chemical compound}}

In organic chemistry, the carbon number of a compound is the number of carbon atoms in each molecule.Nava Dayan, Lambros Kromidas (ed.) Formulating, Packaging, and Marketing of Natural Cosmetic Products John Wiley & Sons, 2011;

{{ISBN|047048408X}}; page 218

The properties of hydrocarbons can be correlated with the carbon number, although the carbon number alone does not give an indication of the saturation of the organic compound. When describing a particular molecule, the "carbon number" is also the ordinal position of a particular carbon atom in a chain.