React Router Interview Questions & Answers 2026

📖 Introduction

This comprehensive guide focuses on React Router interview questions covering client-side routing. Whether you're preparing for your first React.js interview or looking to refresh your knowledge, this resource provides detailed answers with code examples to help you succeed.

What you'll learn:

React Router Basics: Setting up routing in React applications
Navigation: Programmatic and declarative navigation
Nested Routes: Creating complex route hierarchies
Route Guards: Protecting routes with authentication
React Router v6: Latest features and migration guide
Dynamic Routes: Handling URL parameters and query strings

Perfect for:

Developers preparing for React.js interviews focusing on routing
Frontend engineers looking to master React Router
Teams conducting React technical assessments
Anyone learning React Router and seeking comprehensive interview preparation

Keywords: React Router interview questions, React JS interview questions, React.js interview questions, interview questions on react js Key Features:

11+ React Router interview questions with detailed explanations
Code examples for every concept
Updated for 2026 with latest React features
Covers all difficulty levels from beginner to advanced
Practical answers you can use in real interviews

React Router

This section covers React Router interview questions, including navigation, nested routes, route guards, and React Router v6 features. These questions are essential for understanding client-side routing in React applications.

⬆ Back to Top

What is React Router?
React Router is a powerful routing library built on top of React that helps you add new screens and flows to your application incredibly quickly, all while keeping the URL in sync with what's being displayed on the page.

⬆ Back to Top

How React Router is different from history library?
React Router is a wrapper around the history library which handles interaction with the browser's window.history with its browser and hash histories. It also provides memory history which is useful for environments that don't have global history, such as mobile app development (React Native) and unit testing with Node.

⬆ Back to Top

What are the <Router> components of React Router v6?
React Router v6 provides below 4 <Router> components:
1. <BrowserRouter>:Uses the HTML5 history API for standard web apps.
2. <HashRouter>:Uses hash-based routing for static servers.
3. <MemoryRouter>:Uses in-memory routing for testing and non-browser environments.
4. <StaticRouter>:Provides static routing for server-side rendering (SSR).
The above components will create browser, hash, memory and static history instances. React Router v6 makes the properties and methods of the history instance associated with your router available through the context in the router object.

⬆ Back to Top

What is the purpose of push() and replace() methods of history?
A history instance has two methods for navigation purpose.
1. push()
2. replace()
If you think of the history as an array of visited locations, push() will add a new location to the array and replace() will replace the current location in the array with the new one.

⬆ Back to Top

How do you handle nested routes and route parameters in React Router?

Nested routes allow you to create hierarchies of components, and useParams helps access dynamic route parameters.

Key techniques:

<Outlet>: Renders child routes within a parent layout
useParams: Retrieves route parameters for dynamic routing

import { BrowserRouter, Routes, Route, Outlet, useParams } from "react-router-dom"

function UserProfile() {
  const { userId } = useParams()
  return <h2>User ID: {userId}</h2>
}

function App() {
  return (
    <BrowserRouter>
      <Routes>
        <Route path="user/:userId" element={<Outlet />}>
          <Route path="profile" element={<UserProfile />} />
        </Route>
      </Routes>
    </BrowserRouter>
  )
}

⬆ Back to Top

How do you handle route guards or private routes in React?
To implement private routes, create a component that checks if the user is authenticated before rendering the desired route.
```
import { Navigate } from "react-router-dom"

function PrivateRoute({ children }) {
  return isAuthenticated ? children : <Navigate to="/login" />
}
```
- PrivateRoute: Checks authentication and either renders the children (protected routes) or redirects to the login page.
- <Navigate>: Replaces the deprecated <Redirect> for redirecting in React Router v6+.
⬆ Back to Top

How do you manage the active route state in a multi-page React application?

Use the useLocation hook to get the current route, and conditionally apply styles for the active state.

import { useLocation } from "react-router-dom"

function NavBar() {
  const location = useLocation()
  return (
    <nav>
      <ul>
        <li className={location.pathname === "/home" ? "active" : ""}>Home</li>
        <li className={location.pathname === "/about" ? "active" : ""}>About</li>
      </ul>
    </nav>
  )
}

⬆ Back to Top

How do you handle 404 errors or page not found in React Router?

To handle 404 errors or page not found in React Router, create a catch-all route at the end of your route configuration that renders a custom 404 component.

import { Routes, Route } from "react-router-dom"

function NotFound() {
  return <h1>404 - Page Not Found</h1>
}

function App() {
  return (
    <Routes>
      <Route path="/" element={<Home />} />
      <Route path="/about" element={<About />} />
      <Route path="*" element={<NotFound />} />
    </Routes>
  )
}

In this example, the NotFound component is rendered when no other routes match the URL, indicating a 404 error.

⬆ Back to Top

How to get query parameters in React Router v6?

In React Router v6, you can use the useSearchParams hook to access query parameters from the URL.

import { useSearchParams } from "react-router-dom"

function MyComponent() {
  const [searchParams] = useSearchParams()
  const queryParam = searchParams.get("paramName")
  return <div>Query Param: {queryParam}</div>
}

This hook allows you to retrieve and manipulate query parameters in React Router v6.

⬆ Back to Top

In React Router v6, you can perform automatic redirects after login using the useNavigate hook for programmatic navigation, or the <Navigate> component for declarative redirects.

Using useNavigate hook (programmatic):

import { useNavigate } from 'react-router-dom';

function Login() {
  const navigate = useNavigate();
  const [isAuthenticated, setIsAuthenticated] = useState(false);

  const handleLogin = async () => {
    // Perform login logic
    await authenticateUser();
    setIsAuthenticated(true);
    navigate('/dashboard', { replace: true });
  };

  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={handleLogin}>Login</button>
    </div>
  );
}

Using <Navigate> component (declarative):

import { Navigate } from 'react-router-dom';

function Login() {
  const [isAuthenticated, setIsAuthenticated] = useState(false);

  if (isAuthenticated) {
    return <Navigate to="/dashboard" replace />;
  }

  return <div>Login form...</div>;
}

Key differences:

useNavigate: Use for programmatic navigation after async operations
<Navigate>: Use for declarative redirects based on state/props
replace: true: Replaces current history entry instead of adding a new one

⬆ Back to Top

How do you pass props to a route component in React Router v6?

In React Router v6, you can pass props to a route component using the element prop in the <Route> component.

import { Routes, Route } from 'react-router-dom';

function MyComponent({ propValue }) {
  return <div>Prop Value: {propValue}</div>;
}

function App() {
  return (
    <Routes>
      <Route path="/my-route" element={<MyComponent propValue="Hello" />} />
    </Routes>
  );
}