What is a Maven artifact?

Question

What is an artifact and why does Maven need it?

Answer 1

Q. What is Artifact in maven?
ANS: ARTIFACT is a JAR,(WAR or EAR), but it could be also something else. Each artifact has,

• a group ID (like com.your.package),
• an artifact ID (just a name), and
• a version string.
  The three together uniquely identify the artifact.

Q.Why does Maven need them?
Ans: Maven is used to make them available for our applications.