A wide area network covers a large geographic area, such as a city, state, or country. It can be private, connecting parts of a business, or public, connecting smaller networks.
LAN, WAN, SUBNET – EXPLAINED
The easiest way to understand a WAN is to think of the Internet, the world's largest WAN. The Internet is a WAN because it connects, with the help of ISPs, many smaller local networks or metro networks.
On a smaller scale, a company may have a WAN that consists of cloud services, headquarters, and branches. In this case, the WAN connects those parts of the company.
Regardless of what the WAN brings together or how far apart the networks are, the result is that smaller networks from separate locations can communicate with each other.
