Dimension Table: A Dimension Table, refers to a table, that comprises details about a particular subject area, which helps in processing the query within the database. For instance, time dimension tables can include, Time_id, Time_date, Time_month. Time_year, etc.

Characteristics of Dimension Table: The following are the characteristics of dimension table,

1. It has a primary key using which, every individual row in the table can be separately determined.

2. It has a very large structure, that is distributed horizontally.

3. It has textual attributes i.e., attributes written in textual format. This format describes the components existing in the business dimensions and is used for query execution.

4. It has attributes that are not explicitly related to each other.

5.It has an unnormalized form of data in dimension tables, so as to efficiently process the queries in the database.

6. It can perform drill-down and roll-up operations, whenever required. If the user wants to retrieve details from higher-level to lower-level of aggregation, then drill-down is performed. On the other hand, if the user wants to retrieve details from lower-level to higher-level of aggregation, then roll-up is performed.

7. It consists of less number of records than fact tables.

8. It supports multiple levels of hierarchy.