Parameters of a Statistical Distribution Any statistical distribution is described in terms of shape, scale and location parameters. But what do these parameters mean, geometrically, statistically and for a layman with minimum statistical knowledge?
I have explored wikipedia and still, this doubt continues to exist.
 A: Some technicalities to complement @vinux's answer:
If you have a density $f_X(\cdot)$ for a random variable $X$ where
$$f_X\left(x;\theta,\phi;\vec\xi\right)=\tfrac{1}{\phi}f_X\left(\frac{x-\theta}{\phi};0,1;\vec\xi\right)$$
then $\theta$, $\phi$, & $\vec\xi$ are location, scale, & shape parameters respectively.
Location parameters only shift the density, changing its mean (if it has one) & other measures of central tendency, but no higher moments.
Scale parameters only stretch the density, changing its variance (if it has one) & other measures of dispersion, & the mean when $\newcommand{\ex}{\operatorname{E}}\ex X\neq\theta$, but no higher moments.
Shape parameters change the shape of the density, perhaps stretching or shifting too, so may change any moments. They tend to get called 'shape' parameters only in contrast to location & scale parameters; e.g. the Weibull distribution has scale & shape parameters but no-one talks about the shape parameter of the Poisson distribution (though they do about the two shape parameters of the beta distribution).
It's perhaps worth emphasizing @Nick's point that a parameter's being equal to the expectation of the random variable  doesn't imply that it's a location parameter: $$\psi=\ex{X} \quad \not\Rightarrow \quad f_X\left(x;\psi\right)=f_X\left(x-\psi;0\right)$$
A: The names of the parameters are suggestive. Location, and scale parameters are associated with central tendency, dispersion respectively. For eg: If you change location parameters, mostly it change only the central tendency measures. 
Try this online tool. Distributions
See how the distribution changes for different values of parameters. You could try this with generalized extreme value distribution.
Not all standard distributions have all three parameters. Some distributions have only one or two of the parameters (eg: gamma distribution-shape and scale parameters) 
