A histogram is a graphical representation of frequency distribution of continuous or discrete data. It consists of bars where the height of each bar reflects the number of observations (frequency) within designated intervals, known as bins. The width of each bin determines the range of values it represents, while the total area of the histogram correlates with the total number of observations. Histograms are particularly useful for visualizing the shape of the data distribution, identifying patterns such as skewness, kurtosis, and outliers, which can provide insights into the underlying processes generating the data.