A binary heap is a complete binary tree that satisfies the heap property, where each parent node is either greater than or equal to (in a max-heap) or less than or equal to (in a min-heap) its child nodes. This structure allows for efficient priority queue operations, such as insertion and deletion of the highest or lowest priority element. Binary heaps are typically implemented using an array, where the parent-child relationships can be easily calculated using index arithmetic. The root of the heap is found at index 0, and for any node at index i, its children are located at indices 2i + 1 and 2i + 2.