This document discusses transparency in distributed database management systems (DDBMS). It defines transparency as hiding the internal details of data distribution from users. There are three main aspects of transparency: location transparency ensures users see a uniform namespace regardless of where data is located; fragmentation transparency hides how data is fragmented across sites from users; and replication transparency ensures users cannot tell if data came from a replicated copy or the original. The document provides details on each type of transparency and emphasizes that transparency aims to make the distributed system as easy to use as a centralized one for users.