### Theory:

Route:
A route is an established or selected course of travel taken in getting from a starting point to an ending point (or) destination.
A route can be classified into two types:
• Possible routes.
• Shortest route.
This classification is based on the availability of multiple waypoints (for the Possible routes) and distance (for the Shortest route) between the starting and ending points.
Possible routes:
In route maps, multiple paths can be taken to travel from one point to another. All the available routes are categorized under possible routes. These can be direct routes or routes which has waypoints in between them.
Example:

In the map given above, there are multiple routes to reach point $$G$$ from point $$A$$. All possible routes between $$A$$ and $$G$$ are listed below:
1. $$A—B—G$$.
2. $$A—C—D—G$$.
3. $$A—E—G$$.
4. $$A—F—G$$.
Shortest route:
In route maps, there may be a lot of possible routes, but one among them will be the shortest one. The shortest route will mostly be a direct route between two points.
Example:

In the map given above, there are multiple routes to reach point $$G$$ from point $$A$$. But the route $$A—B—G$$ is the shortest of them all with a distance of $$5$$cm (2 $$+$$ 3).
Fascinating Facts!

Ants are indeed a clever species, they always try to find the shortest distance to collect the foods from the available source. This technique is called Ant colony optimization. In the modern world, we apply this technique in computer programming to find the shortest route possible in the telecommunication networks.
Refer the below video for further clarification: