Performs an equijoin operation on the matching named columns of the specified tables. An equijoin matches values in columns from one table with the corresponding values of columns in another table implicitly using an equal (=) sign. A NATURAL JOIN implicitly performs the following functions: o Coalesces the common columns to condense the columns into a single column and, therefore, you cannot qualify the common column o Performs an equijoin using common columns between table references You cannot specify an explicit join condition if the NATURAL keyword is specified in the query. Following is an example of a natural join. Note the common column C1 is only shown once. Other types of join conditions return the common column as often as it occurs in the table's references. SQL> SELECT * cont> FROM TABLE1 NATURAL LEFT OUTER JOIN TABLE2; C1 TABLE1.C2 TABLE2.C4 10 15 AA 20 25 CC 30 35 NULL 3 rows selected The complexity of what the NATURAL LEFT OUTER JOIN is implicitly executing in the previous example is shown in the following example: SQL> SELECT cont> COALESCE (TABLE1.C1, TABLE2.C1) AS C1, cont> TABLE1.C2, TABLE2.C4 cont> FROM TABLE1 LEFT OUTER JOIN TABLE2 cont> ON TABLE1.C1 = TABLE2.C1; C1 TABLE1.C2 TABLE2.C4 10 15 AA 20 25 CC 30 35 NULL 3 rows selected The NATURAL keyword can be specified for INNER, LEFT OUTER, RIGHT OUTER, and FULL OUTER joins. A natural join between two table references that do not share matching named columns results in a Cartesian product.