page_title: Crystal system
section_title: Overview
hierarchical_section_title: Crystal system / Overview
caption_attribution_description: English: Hanksite crystal from Searles Lake, California. Pen in background for scale.
context_page_description: In crystallography, the terms crystal system, crystal family, and lattice system each refer to one of several classes of space groups, lattices, point groups, or crystals. Informally, two crystals are in the same crystal system if they have similar symmetries, although there are many exceptions to this.
  Crystal systems, crystal families and lattice systems are similar but slightly different, and there is widespread confusion between them: in particular the trigonal crystal system is often confused with the rhombohedral lattice system, and the term "crystal system" is sometimes used to mean "lattice system" or "crystal family".
  Space groups and crystals are divided into seven crystal systems according to their point groups, and into seven lattice systems according to their Bravais lattices. Five of the crystal systems are essentially the same as five of the lattice systems, but the hexagonal and trigonal crystal systems differ from the hexagonal and rhombohedral lattice systems. The six crystal families are formed by combining the hexagonal and trigonal crystal systems into one hexagonal family, in order to eliminate this confusion.
context_section_description: A lattice system is a class of lattices with the same set of lattice point groups, which are subgroups of the arithmetic crystal classes. The 14 Bravais lattices are grouped into seven lattice systems: triclinic, monoclinic, orthorhombic, tetragonal, rhombohedral, hexagonal, and cubic.
  In a crystal system, a set of point groups and their corresponding space groups are assigned to a lattice system. Of the 32 point groups that exist in three dimensions, most are assigned to only one lattice system, in which case both the crystal and lattice systems have the same name. However, five point groups are assigned to two lattice systems, rhombohedral and hexagonal, because both exhibit threefold rotational symmetry. These point groups are assigned to the trigonal crystal system. In total there are seven crystal systems: triclinic, monoclinic, orthorhombic, tetragonal, trigonal, hexagonal, and cubic.
  A crystal family is determined by lattices and point groups. It is formed by combining crystal systems which have space groups assigned to a common lattice system. In three dimensions, the crystal families and  systems are identical, except the hexagonal and trigonal crystal systems, which are combined into one hexagonal crystal family. In total there are six crystal families: triclinic, monoclinic, orthorhombic, tetragonal, hexagonal, and cubic.
  Spaces with less than three dimensions have the same number of crystal systems, crystal families and lattice systems. In one-dimensional space, there is one crystal system. In 2D space, there are four crystal systems: oblique, rectangular, square, and hexagonal.
  The relation between three-dimensional crystal families, crystal systems and lattice systems is shown in the following table: 
  Note: there is no "trigonal" lattice system. To avoid confusion of terminology, the term "trigonal lattice" is not used.
caption: Hexagonal hanksite crystal, with threefold c-axis symmetry
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