In this paper we study the Chen--Ruan cohomology ring of weighted projective spaces. Given a weighted projective space ${\bf P}^{n}_{q_{0}, \dots, q_{n}}$, we determine all of its twisted sectors and the corresponding degree shifting numbers. The main result of this paper is that the obstruction bundle over any 3\nobreakdash-multi\-sector is a direct sum of line bundles which we use to compute the orbifold cup product. Finally we compute the Chen--Ruan cohomology ring of weighted projective space ${\bf P}^{5}_{1,2,2,3,3,3}$.

This paper addresses the problem of constructing a cycle-level intersection theory for toric varieties. We show that by making one global choice, we can determine a cycle representative for the intersection of an equivariant Cartier divisor with an invariant cycle on a toric variety. For a toric variety defined by a fan in $N$, the choice consists of giving an inner product or a complete flag for $M_\Q= \Qt \Hom(N,\mathbb{Z})$, or more generally giving for each cone $\s$ in the fan a linear subspace of $M_\Q$ complementary to $\s^\perp$, satisfying certain compatibility conditions. We show that these intersection cycles have properties analogous to the usual intersections modulo rational equivalence. If $X$ is simplicial (for instance, if $X$ is non-singular), we obtain a commutative ring structure to the invariant cycles of $X$ with rational coefficients. This ring structure determines cycles representing certain characteristic classes of the toric variety. We also discuss how to define intersection cycles that require no choices, at the expense of increasing the size of the coefficient field.