C is a high-level programming language that was developed in the early 1970s by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs. It is known for its efficiency and control over system resources, making it a popular choice for system programming, embedded systems, and application development. C provides a rich set of operators and functions, allowing programmers to write complex programs with relative ease. One of the key features of C is its use of pointers, which enable direct memory access and manipulation. This capability allows for dynamic memory allocation and efficient data structure management. C has influenced many other programming languages, including C++, C#, and Java, and remains widely used in various domains today.