What Is an IP Address?
When you send a letter, you need to write an address on the envelope. Without it, the postal service has no idea where to deliver your mail. Networks work the same way — every device needs an identifier so data can find its destination.
An IP address (Internet Protocol address) is that identifier. It's a unique number assigned to each device connected to a network, allowing packets of data to be sent to the right place.
How IP Addresses Look
The most common format you'll encounter is IPv4, which looks like four numbers separated by dots:
192.168.1.1
74.125.224.72
Each number ranges from 0 to 255. This gives us about 4.3 billion possible addresses — which seemed like plenty in the 1980s but is actually running out as more devices connect to the internet.
That's why IPv6 was created, with much longer addresses that look like this:
2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334
IPv6 provides essentially unlimited addresses, but IPv4 is still widely used.
Addresses Aren't Physical Locations
An important distinction: IP addresses identify devices on a network, but they don't reveal physical locations with precision. Your IP address might indicate your general region or your internet provider, but it's not like GPS coordinates.
Think of it as a mailing address for digital communication. Just as your home address lets the postal service deliver packages to you, your IP address lets the internet deliver data to your device.
Why This Matters
When you type a website address into your browser, your computer needs to know the IP address of the server hosting that site. That's where DNS comes in — translating human-readable names into IP addresses.
Understanding IP addresses helps you grasp how devices find each other on networks and why certain network configurations work the way they do.