Dividing a large API response into numbered pages so that data is returned in manageable chunks rather than all at once.
When an API endpoint could return thousands or millions of records, returning them all in a single response would be slow and resource-intensive. Pagination breaks the response into pages. The client requests page 1, gets the first 100 records; requests page 2, gets the next 100; and so on until all records have been retrieved.
Common pagination approaches include page-based (specify page number and page size), offset-based (specify how many records to skip), and cursor-based (use a token from the previous response to get the next page).
Example: A developer queries an open data API for all building permits in a city. The API returns 100 records per page. The first response includes records 1–100 and a link to the next page. The developer's script follows the next-page links until no more pages are returned, collecting all permits across multiple requests.