URI (Uniform Resource Identifier)A Universal Resource Identifier (URI) is a member of the complete set of all names belonging to registered name spaces and addresses that refer to registered protocols or known naming schemes. In English, this means that a URI is an attempt to define a unique name that remains unique across all computer- and network-protocol- oriented naming schemes currently in use on the Internet. The people behind the Web's design and implementation find this concept useful because it defines a way to make sure that a name for any object is unique among all other objects. In practice, this concept isn't used very much, except to explain the parentage of the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) used to point at individual Web sites.