Living Reviews in Solar Physics is a peer reviewed open access journal published by the Max Planck

In this review, our present day understanding of the Sun’s global photospheric and coronal magnetic fields is discussed from both observational and theoretical viewpoints. Firstly, the large-scale properties of photospheric magnetic fields are described, along with recent advances in photospheric magnetic flux transport models. Following this, the wide variety of theoretical models used to simulate global coronal magnetic fields are described. From this, the combined application of both magnetic flux transport simulations and coronal modeling techniques to describe the phenomena of coronal holes, the Sun’s open magnetic flux and the hemispheric pattern of solar filaments is discussed. Finally, recent advances in non-eruptive global MHD models are described. While the review focuses mainly on solar magnetic fields, recent ad-vances in measuring and modeling stellar magnetic fields are described where appropriate. In the final section key areas of future research are identified. This review is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Germany License