An IP address is a number assigned to your device whenever it connects to the internet, so that other computers know where to send data back. It works like a return address on a letter: a website's server reads the address attached to your request and sends its response to that exact spot. Every phone, laptop, router and smart TV online has one.
You don't pick your IP address yourself. Your internet provider hands it out automatically the moment your router connects, using a system called DHCP. The two addresses shown at the top of this page are the ones your current connection is using right now — one for the older IPv4 system, one for the newer IPv6 system, if your provider supports it.
Public and private addresses
Most people are actually behind two IP addresses at once. Inside your home, your router hands every device — your phone, your laptop, your smart speaker — a private address such as 192.168.1.12, which only matters on your own network and is invisible to the rest of the internet. Your router then shares one public address with the outside world on behalf of all of them. The address shown above is that public one: it's what every website you visit actually sees.
IPv4 and IPv6
There are two address formats in use today. IPv4 addresses look like 203.0.113.42 and were designed in the 1980s for a much smaller internet — there are only about 4.3 billion of them, and they ran out years ago. IPv6 addresses look like 2001:db8::1f and have room for far more devices. Most connections today still use both side by side. See IPv4 vs IPv6 for the difference in full, or why your IPv6 address might be missing above.
Static or dynamic
Home connections usually get a "dynamic" address: it can change after your router restarts or your provider reassigns its network. Businesses and servers often pay for a "static" address instead, which stays fixed — useful if other people or services need to find the same address reliably.
What it reveals — and what it doesn't
An IP address can be traced to roughly a city or region and to the internet provider that issued it, which is how the location shown above this text is worked out. It cannot, on its own, reveal your name, your exact street address, or which person in a household is using it. That said, it is personal enough that many people prefer not to have it visible everywhere — see how to hide your IP address for the honest version of what that does and doesn't achieve.