Best way to link data rows in the same table

Question

In this example I have a table called "Zones"

create table stk_zones (
    ZoneId int not null auto_increment,
    Primary Key (ZoneId),
    ZoneName varchar(255),
    Height int,
    Width int,
    Description varchar(255)
);

Inside this zones table I add a few records:

insert into stk_zones (ZoneName, Height, Width, Description)
values ('Zone A', 100, 200, 'First Zone!'), ('Zone B', 50, 50, 'Second Zone!'), ('Zone C', 50, 100, 'Third Zone!');

What would be the best way to show that Zone B is nested inside of Zone A? They share the same properties so I want to keep them in the same table.

Would the best option be a secondary table, something like:

create table stk_zone_relations (
    ZoneRelationId int not null auto_increment,
    Primary Key (ZoneRelationId),
    ParentZoneId int,
    Foreign Key (ParentZoneId) references stk_zones (ZoneId),
    ChildZoneId int,
    Foreign Key (ChildZoneId) references stk_zones (ZoneId)
);

Not sure proper principals in this sort of scenario.

Answer 1

If a zone can have only one parent, then you have a many:one relationship. That is implemented with just ParentId linking to ZibeId.

If you have zones that belong to multiple other zones (overlapping?), then it sounds more like "many:many". That requires an extra table with 2 columns - each being a ZoneId. See Many-to-many for index advice.