text: A bridging ligand links two or more metal centers. Virtually all inorganic solids with simple formulas are coordination polymers, consisting of metal ion centres linked by bridging ligands. This group of materials includes all anhydrous binary metal ion halides and pseudohalides. Bridging ligands also persist in solution. Polyatomic ligands such as carbonate are ambidentate and thus are found to often bind to two or three metals simultaneously. Atoms that bridge metals are sometimes indicated with the prefix "μ". Most inorganic solids are polymers by virtue of the presence of multiple bridging ligands. Bridging ligands, capable of coordinating multiple metal ions, have been attracting considerable interest because of their potential use as building blocks for the fabrication of functional multimetallic assemblies.