What is the difference between a hard link and a symbolic link?

The File System in most Linux installations is represented by inodes. and thus the File System is basically links to inodes (hard links), for example when all links have been deleted that inode be deleted.

so a Hard Link is a direct like to the inode.on the other hand a Symbolic Link is a link to another hard link so deleting, renaming, or moving the original file will not affect the Hard Link, but any changes to the data in the inode is reflected in all files that refer to that inode.

and thus Hard links is only valid within the same File System. while Symbolic links can span File SystemS as they are simply the name of another file.