Modula-2 is a programming language developed in the late 1970s by Niklaus Wirth, who also created Pascal. It was designed to support structured programming and modular programming, allowing developers to create programs that are easier to understand and maintain. The language emphasizes the use of modules, which are self-contained units of code that can be compiled separately. This modular approach helps in organizing large codebases and promotes code reuse, making it a popular choice for systems programming and embedded systems development.