In accordance with an embodiment, the system enables access to a sharded database using a cache and a shard topology. A shard-aware client application connecting to a sharded database can use a connection pool (e.g., a Universal Connection Pool, UCP), to store or access connections to different shards or chunks of the sharded database within a shared pool. As new connections are created, a shard topology layer can be built at the database driver layer, which learns and caches shard key ranges to locations of shards. The shard topology layer enables subsequent connection requests from a client application to use a fast key path access to the appropriate shard or chunk.