Physical topology refers to the physical design of the network, while logical topology refers to how data is handled within the network regardless of its physical topology.

A local area network (LAN) is a good example of a network that shows both a logical and physical topology. All the terminals in the LAN are linked together; the mapping of this interconnection is the physical topology, while data flow determines the logical topology of the network.

There are seven basic types of physical topology:

• Point-to-point topology
• Bus (point-to-multipoint) topology
• Star topology
• Ring topology
• Tree topology
• Mesh topology
• Hybrid topology