what is api? simple explanation

Technically, API stands for Application Programming Interface. At some point or another, most large companies have built APIs for their customers, or for internal use.
But how do you explain API in plain English? And is there a broader meaning than the one used in development and business? First, let’s pull back and look at how the web itself works.
When I think about the Web, I imagine a large network of connected servers.
Every page on the internet is stored somewhere on a remote server. A remote server is not so mystical after all — it’s just a part of a remotely located computer that is optimized to process requests.
To put things in perspective, you can spin up a server on your laptop capable of serving an entire website to the Web (in fact, a local server is what engineers use to develop websites before releasing them to the public).
When you type www.facebook.com into your browser, a request goes out to Facebook’s remote server. Once your browser receives the response, it interprets the code and displays the page.
To the browser, also known as the client, Facebook’s server is an API. This means that every time you visit a page on the Web, you interact with some remote server’s API.
An API isn’t the same as the remote server — rather it is the part of the server that receives requests and sends responses.

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