Once you know place value — that a digit's worth depends on its column — bigger numbers hold no surprises. We just keep adding columns to the left, and each new column is worth ten times the one to its right.

After ones and tens come hundreds, then thousands:

Each step multiplies by 10: ten ones make a ten, ten tens make a hundred, and ten hundreds make a thousand.

So a four-digit number is just a few thousands, a few hundreds, a few tens, and a few ones. Read it column by column. For example:

The 3 means three thousands, the 4 means four hundreds, the 5 means five tens, and the 8 means eight ones. The very same digit is worth far more on the left than on the right — that is the whole idea of place value, stretched out wider.

See it laid out

Watch a four-digit number drop into a place-value chart, one digit per column. Step through it. Each reload builds a different number.

And it never stops: ten thousands make a ten-thousand, and ten of those make a hundred-thousand. Keep going and you reach a million — a one followed by six zeros, 1{,}000{,}000. Every column is still just ten times its neighbour.

See it explained

Sal Khan introduces the hundreds and thousands places here: