React Mastery Series – Day 19: Routing in React – Building Single Page Applications with React Router

Welcome back to the React Mastery Series ! In the previous article, we explored Custom Hooks in React and learned how reusable logic helps developers build scalable and maintainable applications. Today, we will explore one of the most important concepts in modern frontend development: React Routing Almost every real-world React application contains multiple screens: Login Dashboard Profile Settings Reports Transactions Admin panels But React applications are usually built as: Single Page Applications (SPA) So how do we navigate between different pages without refreshing the browser? The answer is React Router What is Client-Side Routing? Traditional websites work like this: User Clicks Link | ↓ Browser Requests New HTML Page | ↓ Server Sends Page | ↓ Browser Reloads Every navigation causes a full page refresh. React Single Page Applications work differently: User Clicks Link | ↓ React Router Intercepts Request | ↓ URL Changes | ↓ React Loads Component | ↓ No Page Refresh This creates a smooth application experience. What is React Router? React Router is a library that enables navigation between different components based on the URL. Example: /login /dashboard /profile /settings Each URL maps to a React component. Example: /login | ↓ Login Component /dashboard | ↓ Dashboard Component Installing React Router For a React application: npm install react-router-dom The package provides: BrowserRouter Routes Route Link Navigate useNavigate useParams Setting Up BrowserRouter The first step is wrapping your application. Example: import { BrowserRouter } from " react-router-dom " ; import App from " ./App " ; ReactDOM . createRoot ( document . getElementById ( " root " )). render ( < BrowserRouter > < App /> </ BrowserRouter >, ); Now React can manage browser navigation. Creating Routes Routes define which component should display for a URL. Example: import { Routes , Route } from " react-router-dom " ; function App () { return ( < Routes > < Route path = "/" element = { < Ho