In geometry, a torus (plural tori) is a surface of revolution generated by revolving a circle in three-dimensional space about an axis coplanar with the circle. If the axis of revolution does not touch the circle, the surface has a ring shape and is called a torus of revolution.
Real-world examples of toroidal objects include inner tubes, swim rings, and the surface of a doughnut, a bagel or an apple.
A torus should not be confused with a solid torus, which is formed by rotating a disc, rather than a circle, around an axis. A solid torus is a torus plus the volume inside the torus. Real-world approximations include doughnuts, vadai or vada, many lifebuoys, and O-rings.
In topology, a ring torus is homeomorphic to the Cartesian product of two circles: S1 × S1, and the latter is taken to be the definition in that context. It is a compact 2-manifold of genus 1. The ring torus is one way to embed this space into three-dimensional Euclidean space, but another way to do this is the Cartesian product of the embedding of S1 in the plane. This produces a geometric object called the Clifford torus, a surface in 4-space.