Complex Network Analysis in Python

Generate Synthetic Networks

You have read in ​Appreciate Synthetic Networks​, that not only can networks be built from experimental, real-world data, but they can also be synthesized. Synthetic networks can be regular (constructed by executing deterministic algorithms) or complex (emerge from probability distributions). NetworkX functions that build synthetic network graphs are called graph generators (not to be confused with Python generator objects).

In 1999, Ronald C. Read and Robin J. Wilson published a collection of 10,000 small synthetic graphs [RW99]. NetworkX provides generators for 1,253 of them—and about 110 more regular (“classic”) and complex networks. At the moment, it suffices to look only at the graph generators whose output ...