Distribution system reconfiguration and DG installation is a technique that reduces real and reactive power loss, improves voltage profile, enhance power system stability, security of the system and minimizes the cost of installed distributed generation (DG), green house emission. It also minimizes the operational expenses of the system, improves the service operating conditions under normal and abnormal cases. However, DG installation at non-optimal locations in the electrical distribution system will lead to undesirable impacts on system voltage variations and total power loss. Hence, an optimal strategy has to be developed for solving the optimal location and sizing of DG. In recent years several analytical, classical, meta-heuristic and intelligence techniques have been implemented for solving this problem. The main objective of optimal distributed generation placement (ODGP) is to obtain an optimal location and sizing of DG have to be installed subject to several constraints. The optimal position of the switches and the protective devices are the most significant aspects in planning electrical distribution systems. In a distribution system, switching devices play a crucial role in reconfiguration of network and DG installation. A complete review based on the recent works published in the network reconfiguration, ODGP has presented in this paper. © 2020, Research Trend. All rights reserved.