Connected -Realm vs Realm Endpoints

What is the idea behind the ‘connected-realm’ endpoint, is it all realms that are connected to the WOW network or all realms that can currently be queried by further API calls?

The reason I ask is that I can see many more realms when I query ‘realm’ end point (as you’d expect) and I know of a few of these realms that are active and can be played on that don’t exist in the ‘connected-realm’ end point?

Trying to get my head around the separation and how the two calls fit/complement each other.

Connected realms are groups of realms joined together, usually because they were once high population and then changed to low pop, so they were “merged” together with other low pop realms.

For the API you’ll use the connected realm id when you need to access data shared among all those realms, like AH data for example.

Since a character belongs to a specific realm even if this realm is part of a connected group, you still need the realm name for accessing a character profile.

One follow on question, are all the realms listed on the ‘connected-realm’ end point all linked together or is this a list of realms that are linked to at minimum one other realm?

I’m pretty sure even if they are not connected to any other realm they still have an entry on connected-realm (with only one realm) as its id is required to access AH data.

Ok, so there is a list of connected realms that has a single realm ID say 509, when you query that connected realm (‘data/wow/connected-realm/509’) it then will list all the other realms 509 is connected to under the node ‘realms’, now all the other connected realms connected to 509 for example 544 & 546 will NOT be listed on a call to ‘data/wow/connected-realms/index’ and the 509 ID will need to be used to query the realms 509, 544 and 546.

Am I correct in that logic?

Yes, but also note some of them consists of only 1 realm, that is for big realms that are not connect to any other realm. They still have their ID listed in connected realms.

Just test US realm IDs 4 and 11 in the API docs and you’ll see what I mean. 4 is connected to 1355 and 11 is not connected to any other realm.

Noticed this, thanks for the help. Pretty sure I understand the difference and how they all link together now, appreciated.