The Coordination Number – an “Inorganic Chameleon”

The purpose of the present article is to describe the changing ambiguous character of the term “coordination number” and its present-day definition in structural chemistry, particularly of typical solids (assemblies of particles with short-range and long-range order). An effort is made at the same time to describe the crystal structure of solids as simply as possible while also taking long-range order into account, i.e. by determining “effective” coordination numbers by the geometrical “polyhedron method” or from MAPLE (Madelung Part of Lattice Energy) values.