RESTful Web Services are an architectural style for building web services that provide access to resources over the internet. They are based on the principles of Representational State Transfer (REST), which emphasizes a stateless communication protocol, typically HTTP. This means that each request from a client to a server must contain all the information needed to understand and process the request, without relying on any stored context on the server.

One of the key features of RESTful Web Services is their use of standard HTTP methods such as GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE to perform operations on resources. Each resource is identified by a unique URI, allowing clients to interact with them in a consistent manner. This uniform interface simplifies the integration of RESTful services with various programming languages and platforms, making them a popular choice among developers ¹³⁴.

Additionally, RESTful services are designed to be scalable and flexible, which is essential for modern web applications that require efficient data handling and resource management ⁴.