AbstractWe study the set of intrinsic metrics on a given graph. This is a convex compact set and it carries a natural order. We investigate existence of largest elements with respect to this order. We show that the only locally finite graphs which admit a largest intrinsic metric are certain finite star graphs. In particular, all infinite locally finite graphs do not admit a largest intrinsic metric. For infinite graphs which are not locally finite the set of intrinsic metrics may be trivial as we show by an example. Moreover, we give a characterization for the existence of intrinsic metrics with finite balls for weakly spherically symmetric graphs.