TITLE: Is a bijective local homeomorphism a global homeomorphism. What about diffeomorphisms?
QUESTION [6 upvotes]: Is a bijective local homeomorphism a global homeomorphism? What about diffeomorphisms?

I don't know if it's true this property, I'm not sure. If someone can prove it I would be very grateful, and if not I would welcome a counterexample because I can not think. Thank you very much. At worst, if not true, someone knows a sufficient condition to fulfill what I want? Thank you very much!

REPLY [12 votes]: Here's a very detailed proof.
Let's say we have a continuous map $f:X \to Y$ of topological spaces of which we know:

$f$ is a local homeomorphism, that is for every $p \in X$ exist the open subsets $U \subseteq X$, $V \subseteq Y$ with $p \in U$ and such that
$$f_{|U}:U \to V$$
is a homeomorphism
$f$ is bijective, that is there is an inverse map $f^{-1}:Y \to X$

In order to prove that $f$ is a homeomorphism we need to prove that $f^{-1}$ is continuous. 
So, let $U' \subseteq X$ an open set and $V' = (f^{-1})^{-1}(U') = f(U')$. For each $p \in V'$ let $U_p$, $V_p$ as above (i.e. $f_{|U_p}: U_p \to V_p$ is homeomorphism), then
$$
V' \cap V_p = f_{|U_p}(U' \cap U_p)
$$
is open because $f_{|U_p}$ is an homeomorphism (and therefore an open map). Furthermore 
$$V'= \cup_{p \in V'} V' \cap V_p$$ 
is open, as union of open sets.