Fences are constructed for several purposes, including:

• Agricultural fencing, to keep livestock in or predators out
• Privacy fencing, to provide privacy
• Temporary fencing, to provide safety and security, and to direct movement, wherever temporary access control is required, especially on building and construction sites
• Perimeter fencing, to prevent trespassing or theft and/or to keep children and pets from wandering away.
• Decorative fencing, to enhance the appearance of a property, garden or other landscaping
• Boundary fencing, to demarcate a piece of real property

Types

Various types of fencing include:

• Aluminum
• Barbed wire fence
• Cactus fence
• Chain link fencing, sometimes called "wire netting"
• Concrete fence, easy to install and highly durable
• Chicken wire, light wire mesh for keeping predators out and chickens or other small livestock in
• Dry-stone wall or rock fence, often agricultural
• Electric fence
• Ha-ha (or sunken fence)
• Hedgerows of intertwined, living shrubs (constructed by hedge laying)
• High tensile smooth wire
• Hurdle fencing, made from moveable sections
• Live fencing is the use of live woody species for fences.
• Palisade
• Pest-exclusion fence
• Pet fence Underground Fence for pet containment
• Picket fences, generally a waist-high, painted, partially decorative fence
• Pool fence
• Post-and-rail fencing
• Roundpole fences, similar to post and rail fencing but more closely spaced rails, typical of Scandinavia and other areas rich in raw timber.Slate fencing in Mid-Wales
• Slate fence, a type of palisade made of vertical slabs of slate wired together. Commonly used in parts of Wales.
• Snow fence
• Spear-top fence
• Split-rail fences made of timber, often laid in a zig-zag pattern, particularly in newly-settled parts of the United States and Canada
• Stake-and-wire fencing
• Turf mounds in semiarid grasslands such as the western United States or Russian steppes`
• Temporary fencing
• Vinyl fencing
• Wattle fencing, of split branches woven between stakes, or of moveable wattle hurdles.
• Wood-panel fencing
• Woven wire fencing, many designs, from fine Chicken wire to heavy mesh "sheep fence" or "ring fence"
• Wrought iron fencing, made from tube steel, also known as ornamental iron.

Alternatives to fencing are a hedge or a ditch (sometimes filled with water, forming a moat).