In mathematics, a well-order (or well-ordering or well-order relation) on a set S is a total ordering on S with the property that every non-empty subset of S has a least element in this ordering. The set S together with the ordering is then called a well-ordered set (or woset). In some academic articles and textbooks these terms are instead written as wellorder, wellordered, and wellordering or well order, well ordered, and well ordering.

Every non-empty well-ordered set has a least element. Every element s of a well-ordered set, except a possible greatest element, has a unique successor (next element), namely the least element of the subset of all elements greater than s. There may be elements, besides the least element, that have no predecessor (see § Natural numbers below for an example). A well-ordered set S contains for every subset T with an upper bound a least upper bound, namely the least element of the subset of all upper bounds of T in S.

If ≤ is a non-strict well ordering, then < is a strict well ordering. A relation is a strict well ordering if and only if it is a well-founded strict total order. The distinction between strict and non-strict well orders is often ignored since they are easily interconvertible.

Every well-ordered set is uniquely order isomorphic to a unique ordinal number, called the order type of the well-ordered set. The well-ordering theorem, which is equivalent to the axiom of choice, states that every set can be well ordered. If a set is well ordered (or even if it merely admits a well-founded relation), the proof technique of transfinite induction can be used to prove that a given statement is true for all elements of the set.

The observation that the natural numbers are well ordered by the usual less-than relation is commonly called the well-ordering principle (for natural numbers).

Every well-ordered set is uniquely order isomorphic to a unique ordinal number, called the order type of the well-ordered set. The position of each element within the ordered set is also given by an ordinal number. In the case of a finite set, the basic operation of counting, to find the ordinal number of a particular object, or to find the object with a particular ordinal number, corresponds to assigning ordinal numbers one by one to the objects. The size (number of elements, cardinal number) of a finite set is equal to the order type. Counting in the everyday sense typically starts from one, so it assigns to each object the size of the initial segment with that object as last element. Note that these numbers are one more than the formal ordinal numbers according to the isomorphic order, because these are equal to the number of earlier objects (which corresponds to counting from zero). Thus for finite n, the expression "n-th element" of a well-ordered set requires context to know whether this counts from zero or one. In an expression "β-th element" where β can also be an infinite ordinal, it will typically count from zero.

For an infinite set, the order type determines the cardinality, but not conversely: sets of a particular infinite cardinality can have well-orders of many different types (see § Natural numbers, below, for an example). For a countably infinite set, the set of possible order types is uncountable.

The standard ordering ≤ of the natural numbers is a well ordering and has the additional property that every non-zero natural number has a unique predecessor.