A directory in sys.path. In contrast to ordinary directories the pth files in the directory are processed, too.
user site directory
A site directory inside the users' home directory. A user site directory is specific to a Python version. The path contains the version number (major and minor only).
Unix (including Mac OS X)
~/.local/lib/python2.6/site-packages
Windows
%APPDATA%/Python/Python26/site-packages
user data directory
Usually the parent directory of the user site directory. It's meant for Python version specific data like config files, docs, images and translations.
Unix (including Mac)
~/.local/lib/python2.6
Windows
%APPDATA%/Python/Python26
user base directory
It's located inside the user's home directory. The user site and use config directory are inside the base directory. On some systems the directory may be shared with 3rd party apps.
Unix (including Mac)
~/.local
Windows
%APPDATA%/Python
user script directory
A directory for binaries and scripts. [10] It's shared across Python versions and the destination directory for scripts.