What is the difference between Fact and Dimension tables in a Star Schema

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I’ve been reading about schema used for health data and the star schema came up.

I have looked at examples, and tried to get chatgpt to explain the difference between dimension and fact tables to no avail.

What exactly is the difference between them, how do they relate, and what makes a table been either the center or the points of the star?

What is the advantage of this schema over others?

In: Engineering

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Anonymous 0 Comments

This isn’t really my specialty, but in lieu of a better answer:

Dimensions = properties of the data can be used for grouping/classification/filtering
Facts = the actual data (generally numeric)

e.g. Imagine population. “Population” would be the actual data (fact), and something like “City” and “Year” could be dimensions.