A Navy List or Naval Register is an official list of naval officers, their ranks and seniority, the ships which they command or to which they are appointed, etc., that is published by the government or naval authorities of a country.
The Navy List fulfills an important function in international law in that warships are required by article 29 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to be commanded by a commissioned officer whose name appears in the appropriate service list.
Past copies of the Navy List are also important sources of information for historians and genealogists.
The Navy List for the Royal Navy is no longer published in hard-copy.
The Royal Navy (United Kingdom) publishes annual lists of active and reserve officers, and biennial lists of retired officers. The equivalent in the United States Navy is the Naval Register, which is updated online on a continuous basis.
Good sources of historical data on UK's Navy Lists are
The Naval Vessel Register (NVR) is the official inventory of ships and service craft in custody of or titled by the United States Navy. It contains information on ships and service craft that make up the official inventory of the Navy from the time a vessel is authorized through its life cycle and disposal. It also includes ships that have been removed from the register (often termed stricken or struck), but not disposed of by sale, transfer to another government, or other means. Ships and service craft disposed of prior to 1987 are currently not included, but are gradually being added along with other updates.
The NVR traces its origin back to the 1880s, having evolved from several previous publications. In 1911, the Bureau of Construction and Repair published "Ships Data US Naval Vessels", which subsequently became the "Ships Data Book" in 1952 under the Bureau of Ships. The Bureau of Ordnance's "Vessel Register", first published in 1942 and retitled "Naval Vessel Register", was combined with the "Ships Data Book" under the Bureau of Ships in 1959.
A naval ship is a military ship (or sometimes boat, depending on classification) used by a navy. Naval ships are differentiated from civilian ships by construction and purpose. Generally, naval ships are damage resilient and armed with weapon systems, though armament on troop transports is light or non-existent.
Naval ships designed primarily for naval warfare are termed warships, as opposed to support (auxiliary ships) or shipyard operations.
Naval ship classification is a field that has changed over time, and is not an area of wide international agreement, so this article currently uses the system as currently used by the United States Navy.