Question

What does the atomic number represent?

Answer 1

In ground state atoms, both the number of protons and electrons.

Explanation:

But since electrons tend to get transferred or shared when bonding with other atoms, most will just answer that the atomic number pertains to number of protons only.

So in ground state atoms (meaning no charges):

number of protons = number of electrons

Atomic number = number of protons

Atomic mass = number of neutrons + number of protons