Software Architect's Handbook

What are bounded contexts?

A domain model is a conceptual model based on the domain and includes both behaviors and data. It represents a part of the overall solution that fulfills the goals of the business. Bounded contexts are a pattern in DDD that represent partitions in the domain model. Similar to subdomains, which are partitions in the domain, bounded contexts are partitions in the domain model. As is the case with subdomains, creating partitions and boundaries reduces the overall complexity.

A bounded context may map to a single subdomain, but keep in mind that is not always the case. The domain model for a subdomain may require multiple bounded contexts for the overall solution of that subdomain.

For example, if we were creating a ...