A MAC address is also referred to as what?

A MAC address, or Media Access Control address, is fundamentally identified as a hardware address. It is assigned to the network interface card (NIC) of a device, which enables it to communicate on a network. This address is unique to each piece of hardware, helping to identify devices at the data link layer of the OSI model. The MAC address is integral for local networking situations, allowing devices to accurately send packets to the correct endpoint.

While other terms such as "logical address" or "network address" may refer to different types of addressing used at higher layers (for example, IP addresses are logical addresses), the term "hardware address" specifically highlights the physical nature of the MAC address, linking it directly to the device's hardware instead of a more abstract networking layer.