Abstract: The real-time measurements in distribution network are very limited, and it is a technical challenge to identify the topology of distribution network. In this paper, the concept of optimal matching loop power is proposed. Based on optimal matching loop power, an efficient iden-tification method is developed, which can find out several possible topologies. Then, the state es-timator is used to choose the most reasonable topology with the minimal measurement residuals. In the proposed method, the topology identification is converted to the problem of network recon-figuration whose objective is the minimal measurement residuals. Numerical tests prove that the proposed method is potentially applicable to the practice.