A kilobyte (KB) is a unit of digital information storage that equals 1,024 bytes. It is commonly used to measure the size of small files, such as text documents or images. The term "kilo" comes from the Greek word for a thousand, but in computing, it specifically refers to 1,024 due to the binary system used by computers. Kilobytes are part of a hierarchy of data measurement units, which include larger units like megabytes (MB) and gigabytes (GB). Understanding kilobytes is essential for managing file sizes and storage capacity in devices like computers, smartphones, and tablets.