We want the internal representation of a graph to be one that can be efficiently manipulated.

If the external representation of a node is a string, such as a city name, we can use a Map or symbol table to map it to an internal representation such as:

• a node number, convenient to access arrays of information about the node

• a pointer to a node object.

A graph is called dense if |E| = O(|V|²); if |E| is less, the graph is called sparse . Most graphs used in applications are sparse.

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