Inheritance in Java is a fundamental concept in object-oriented programming that allows one class to inherit properties and behaviors (methods and variables) from another class. This mechanism promotes code reusability and establishes a hierarchical relationship between classes. The class that inherits is called a subclass (or child class), while the class from which it inherits is known as a superclass (or parent class) ²³.

In Java, a subclass can inherit public and protected methods and variables from its superclass. This means that the subclass can use these inherited features without needing to redefine them, which simplifies code maintenance and enhances clarity ¹. Additionally, Java supports single inheritance, meaning a class can only have one direct superclass, although it can inherit from multiple levels of classes in the hierarchy, ultimately descending from the Object class ³.

Inheritance is often visualized as a tree structure, where the parent class is at the top, and subclasses branch out below, representing more specific categories of the parent class ².