[[mapping-uid-field]]
=== `_uid`

Each document indexed is associated with an id and a type, the internal
`_uid` field is the unique identifier of a document within an index and
is composed of the type and the id (meaning that different types can
have the same id and still maintain uniqueness).

The `_uid` field is for type based filtering, as well as for
lookups of `_id` and `_type`.
