What is simulation distance in Minecraft?

Minecraft has a ton of settings that can be confusing for those not elbow-deep in knowledge about the game's engine or how it works, and simulation distance is one of them.

Minecraft Bedrock - Ticking Area/Simulation Distance Tutorial ( Xbox / MCPE / Windows 10 / Switch )

silentwisperer👻 on X: New video! Trident Killers Fixed, Simulation Distance Parity, Bug Fixes & More! Lots of great stuff in the recent betas and snapshots! / X

What is Simulation Distance in Minecraft and How to Change It?

The Game Changing New Minecraft 1.18 Setting

Simulation distance – Minecraft Wiki

What is the ideal simulation distance in Minecraft?

MCPE-150731] bug simulation distance realms - Jira

So I'm playing on 1.18 on the realm I own, my render distance is set to 25 and the simulation distance is set to 20 but this looks like my render distance

What is simulation distance in Minecraft: Java Edition 1.18?

Any way to force to Bedrock to save all visible chunks? · Issue #25 · papyrus-mc/papyruscs · GitHub

What is the ideal simulation distance in Minecraft?