Connected components are subsets of a graph where any two vertices are connected to each other by paths, and which are connected to no additional vertices in the supergraph. In simpler terms, if you can travel from one point to another within a component without leaving it, those points belong to the same connected component. In a graph, connected components can be identified using algorithms like Depth-First Search or Breadth-First Search. Each connected component can be thought of as a distinct group within the graph, helping to analyze its structure and understand relationships between different parts of the data.