When a machine or device connects to a network and internet is a very big network, that machine or device receives a distinct identifier from its network service provider. Just as you would send a letter to specific address, network devices send data to a specific identifier in the network in order to communicate with it.

The internet as most of us know it uses TCP/IP protocol for communication and in TCP/IP protocol the distinct identifier for a device is referred to as an IP address.

An IP address (Internet Protocol address) is a label with a specific format that is assigned to each device. The format of the IP address depends on its standard and can be either IPv4 or IPv6.

Currently most of the IPs are IPv4 meaning that it would look like a sequence of 4 numbers like 1.2.3.4. but a new format (IPv6) is currently being deployed and in that format an IP address looks like a sequence of 8 numbers each of 4 digits 0001:0001:0001:0001:0001:0001:0001:0001

You can check your current IP using publicly available services like whatismyipaddress.com or iplocation.net