[en] This paper is concerned with the existence and uniqueness of the entropy solution to the initial boundary value problem for the inviscid Burgers equation. To apply the method of vanishing viscosity to study the existence of the entropy solution, we first introduce the initial boundary value problem for the viscous Burgers equation, and as in Evans (1998 Partial Differential Equations (Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society) and Hopf (1950 Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 3 201-30), give the formula of the corresponding viscosity solutions by Hopf-Cole transformation. Secondly, we prove the convergence of the viscosity solution sequences and verify that the limiting function is an entropy solution. Finally, we give an example to show how our main result can be applied to solve the initial boundary value problem for the Burgers equation