13.5: Types of Table Relationships
- Page ID
- 46635
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Learning Objectives
- Define one-to-one relationships
- Define one-to-many relationships
- Define many-to-many relationships
There are three types of relationships in Access between tables:
- One-to-one
- One-to-many
- Many-to-many
One-to-One Relationships
A one-to-one relationship means that a record in the first table can have one and only one record related to it in a second table. For example, a product listed in a products table would have only one country of origin record in a operations table.
Practice Question
One-to-Many Relationships
One of the most common relationships between tables is the one-to-many relationship. In a one-to-many relationship, a record in the first table is related to multiple records in the second table. For example, an employee table could have relationships with a payroll table that contains multiple records of paychecks.
Practice Question
Many-to-Many Relationships
Many-to-many relationships are defined as a record in the first table having multiple relationships in the second table and those records in the second table also having multiple relationships within the first table. For example, a streaming service would have TV series that are selected to view by multiple customers while each customer of the service would watch multiple TV series.
Practice Question
Contributors and Attributions
- Types of Table Relationships. Authored by: Robert Danielson. Provided by: Lumen Learning. License: CC BY: Attribution


