Otherwise on StateProvider

You can with $stateProvider using the catch all syntax ("*path"). You just need to add a state config at the bottom of your list like the following one:

$stateProvider.state("otherwise", { url: "*path", templateUrl: "views/error-not-found.html" }); 

All the options are explained in https://github.com/angular-ui/ui-router/wiki/URL-Routing#regex-parameters.

The nice thing of this option, as opposed to $urlRouterProvider.otherwise(...), is that you 're not forced to a location change.

You can also manually inject $state into the otherwise function, which you can then navigate to a non-url state. This has the benefit of the browser not changing the addressbar, which is helpful for handling going back to a previous page.

 $urlRouterProvider.otherwise(function ($injector, $location) { var $state = $injector.get('$state'); $state.go('defaultLayout.error', { title: "Page not found", message: 'Could not find a state associated with url "'+$location.$$url+'"' }); }); 

I just want to chime in on the great answers that are already provided. The latest version of @uirouter/angularjs marked the class UrlRouterProvider as deprecated. They now recommend using UrlService instead. You can achieve the same result with the following modification:

$urlService.rules.otherwise('/defaultState'); 

Additional methods: https://ui-router.github.io/ng1/docs/1.0.16/interfaces/url.urlrulesapi.html

Ok, the silly moment when you realize that the question you asked is already answered in the first lines of the sample code! Just take a look at the sample code.

 angular.module('sample', ['ui.compat']) .config( [ '$stateProvider', '$routeProvider', '$urlRouterProvider', function ($stateProvider, $routeProvider, $urlRouterProvider) { $urlRouterProvider .when('/c?id', '/contacts/:id') .otherwise('/'); // <-- This is what I was looking for ! .... 

Take a look here.

The accepted answer references angular-route asks about ui-router. The accepted answer uses the "monolithic" $routeProvider, which requires the ngRoute module (whereas ui-router needs the ui.router module)

The highest-rated answer uses $stateProvider instead, and says something like .state("otherwise", { url : '/otherwise'... }), but I can't find any mention of "otherwise" in the documentation it links. However, I see that $stateProvider is mentioned in this answer where it says:

You can't use only $stateProvider. You need to inject $urlRouterProvider

That's where my answer might help you. For me, it was sufficient to use $urlRouterProvider just like this:

 my_module .config([ , '$urlRouterProvider' , function( , $urlRouterProvider){ //When the url is empty; i.e. what I consider to be "the default" //Then send the user to whatever state is served at the URL '/starting' //(It could say '/default' or any other path you want) $urlRouterProvider .when('', '/starting'); //... }]); 

My suggestion is consistent with the ui-router documentation, (this specific revision), where it includes a similar use of the .when(...) method (the first call to the function):

app.config(function($urlRouterProvider){ // when there is an empty route, redirect to /index $urlRouterProvider.when('', '/index'); // You can also use regex for the match parameter $urlRouterProvider.when(/aspx/i, '/index'); })