What is the difference between a URI, a URL and a URN?

Question

People talk about URLs, URIs, and URNs as if they\'re different things, but they look the same to the naked eye.

W

Answer 1

URI, URL, URN

As the image above indicates, there are three distinct components at play here. It’s usually best to go to the source when discussing matters like these, so here’s an exerpt from Tim Berners-Lee, et. al. in RFC 3986: Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax:

A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a compact sequence of characters that identifies an abstract or physical resource.

A URI can be further classified as a locator, a name, or both. The term “Uniform Resource Locator” (URL) refers to the subset of URIs that, in addition to identifying a resource, provide a means of locating the resource by describing its primary access mechanism (e.g., its network “location”).