A set of vertices S resolves a graph G if every vertex is uniquely determined by its vector of distances to the vertices in S. The metric dimension of G is the minimum cardinality of a resolving set of G. This paper studies the metric dimension of cartesian products $G\,\square\,H$. We prove that the metric dimension of $G\,\square\,G$ is tied in a strong sense to the minimum order of a so‐called doubly resolving set in G. Using bounds on the order of doubly resolving sets, we establish bounds on $G\,\square\,H$ for many examples of G and H. One of our main results is a family of graphs G with bounded metric dimension for which the metric dimension of $G\,\square\,G$ is unbounded.

A set of vertices $S$ resolves a connected graph $G$ if every vertex is uniquely determined by its vector of distances to the vertices in $S$. The metric dimension of $G$ is the minimum cardinality of a resolving set of $G$. Let ${\cal G}_{\beta,D}$ be the set of graphs with metric dimension $\beta$ and diameter $D$. It is well-known that the minimum order of a graph in ${\cal G}_{\beta,D}$ is exactly $\beta+D$. The first contribution of this paper is to characterise the graphs in ${\cal G}_{\beta,D}$ with order $\beta+D$ for all values of $\beta$ and $D$. Such a characterisation was previously only known for $D\leq2$ or $\beta\leq1$. The second contribution is to determine the maximum order of a graph in ${\cal G}_{\beta,D}$ for all values of $D$ and $\beta$. Only a weak upper bound was previously known.