In a double displacement reaction, ions in two ionic compounds switch places, forming two new compounds.

*An example is the reaction between silver nitrate and sodium chloride, which forms silver chloride and sodium nitrate*:

$$AgNO_3 + NaCl → AgCl + NaNO_3$$

- The products are two new compounds: silver chloride and sodium nitrate.

- The ions that switched places are silver and sodium (for the positive ions) and chloride and nitrate (for the negative ions).