Explain why 58 can be rounded to the nearest hundred even though there is not a digit in the hundreds place?

Because 58 is closer to 100 than 0

another example you can see is if it was 10058 and you were asked to round to the nearest hundred you can say 10100

For this case we have the following definition:

hundred place: number of three digits whose absolute value is greater than zero.

Then, we have the following rounding rule:

If the previous number is greater than or equal to five, the next number increases by one unit.

We then have the following number:

58

We observe that the number before a hundred place is equal to five.

Therefore, rounding off we have:

58 = 100

Answer:

According to rounding rules we have 58 can be rounded to the nearest hundred:

100