European Article Number (EAN)
Formal
Worldwide standardized 13-digit bar code numbering scheme for identifying packages, shipping containers, parts practically anything.
Practical
The EAN-13 barcodes are used worldwide for marking products often sold at retail point of sale. The numbers encoded in EAN-13 bar codes are product identification numbers, which are also called Japanese Article Numbers (JAN) in Japan. All the numbers encoded in UPC and EAN barcodes are known as Global Trade Item Numbers (GTIN), and they can be encoded in other GS1 barcodes.
