A method for region guided and change tolerant fast shortest path determination and graph preprocessing for network management and control. In an embodiment, a method includes partitioning, by a network component, a plurality of network nodes into a plurality of regions, each network node belonging to one of the regions; identifying, by the network component, border nodes for each region, each border node in a region connecting to at least one border node in a connecting region; determining, by the network component, intervals between regions according to the border nodes, each interval comprising a minimum distance and a maximum distance between two regions; determining, by the network component, a path from a source node to a target node according to the intervals.