# Topics Overview

> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.redpanda.com/llms.txt). Component-specific: [cloud-data-platform-full.txt](https://docs.redpanda.com/cloud-data-platform-full.txt)

---
title: Topics Overview
latest-operator-version: v26.1.4
latest-console-tag: v3.7.3
latest-connect-version: 4.93.0
latest-redpanda-tag: v26.1.9
docname: topics/create-topic
page-component-name: cloud-data-platform
page-version: master
page-component-version: master
page-component-title: Cloud
page-relative-src-path: topics/create-topic.adoc
page-edit-url: https://github.com/redpanda-data/cloud-docs/edit/main/modules/develop/pages/topics/create-topic.adoc
description: Learn how to create a topic for a Redpanda Cloud cluster.
page-git-created-date: "2026-03-31"
page-git-modified-date: "2026-03-31"
---

<!-- Source: https://docs.redpanda.com/cloud-data-platform/develop/topics/create-topic.md -->

Topics provide a way to organize events. After creating a cluster, you can create a topic in it. Each cluster can have up to 40,000 topics.

Topic properties are populated from information stored in the broker. Redpanda features, such as Tiered Storage, are enabled and configured by default in Redpanda Cloud. You can optionally overwrite some settings.

> ⚠️ **WARNING**
>
> Modifying the properties of topics that are created and managed by Redpanda applications can cause unexpected errors. This may lead to connector and cluster failures.


| Property | Description |
| --- | --- |
| Partitions | The number of partitions for the topic. |
| Replication factor | The number of partition replicas for the topic.Redpanda Cloud requires a minimum of 3 topic replicas. If a topic is created with a replication factor of 1, Redpanda resets the replication factor to 3. |
| Cleanup policy | The policy that determines how to clean up old log segments.The default is delete. |
| Retention time | The maximum length of time to keep messages in a topic.The default is 7 days. |
| Retention size | The maximum size of each partition. If a partition reaches this size and more messages are added, the oldest messages are deleted.The default is infinite. |
| Message size | The maximum size of a message or batch for a newly-created topic.The default is 20 MiB for BYOC and Dedicated clusters, and 8 MiB for Serverless clusters. You can increase this value up to 32 MiB for BYOC and Dedicated clusters, and 20 MiB for Serverless clusters, with the message.max.bytes topic property. |

## [](#next-steps)Next steps

-   [Manage Topics](https://docs.redpanda.com/cloud-data-platform/develop/topics/config-topics/)

-   [Manage Cloud Topics](https://docs.redpanda.com/cloud-data-platform/develop/topics/cloud-topics/)