[data structures] Acronym for North American Industry Classification System. A system for classifying individual business locations by their types of economic activity. The statistics agencies of Canada, Mexico, and the United States collaborated on NAICS to standardize the industry statistics produced by the three countries. NAICS is used as an identification system by all federal statistical agencies, as well as many state and local agencies, trade associations, private businesses, and other organizations. NAICS replaced Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes in 1997.