Tablespace and data files in Oracle

Tablespace is a place to store data files. The data file usually has multiple tables, but nothing prevents you from having one or even a part of a table. Indexes too.

Generally each Tablespace is on a different storage drive and is a logical organization, just to be able to differentiate where the files will be. It's just a facilitator to indicate where the data is physically.

If you know namespace of programming languages, it's basically this, it's just a way of naming a set of minor things.

Withdrawn documentation .

Tablespace corresponds to a logical area where oracle stores the collection of files that make up the database, datafiles are the physical files themselves.