location configuration?

[Jeffrey Walton]

I'm reading through the nginx architecture document at
http://www.aosabook.org/en/nginx.html.

The location configuration is called out in a few places. For example:

    Phase handlers typically do four things: get the
    location configuration, generate an appropriate
    response, send the header, and send the body.

What is the location configuration, and why is it significant?

Thanks in advance.