A great way to think of a LAN vs a VLAN, is a house compared to an apartment. Let's imagine the structure as hardware and the tenants inside as virtual local area networks (VLANs). A house is a single structure with a single tenant living inside. If VLANs did not exist, there would only be one virtual network "tenant" inside of each switch "structure". Now, picture an apartment. This is a single structure with multiple tenants living inside subdivided homes. There are multiple virtual networks "tenants" inside a single switch "structure". The homes inside the apartment building are connected by hallways, elevators, and doors. These are how the tenants (virtual networks) are interconnected inside one single LAN (structure) and allow them to communicate within one another.   Imagine this, if you were a housing developer and were tasked with building homes for a large group of people in the most efficient way possible, would you build 100 separate house structures (LANs) or you would you build 1 structure (LAN) with 100 apartments (VLANs) inside?  ... View more