Inheritance in Python is a core concept of object-oriented programming (OOP) that allows one class, known as the child or derived class, to inherit attributes and methods from another class, referred to as the parent or base class. This mechanism promotes code reuse and establishes a hierarchical relationship between classes, enabling the creation of specialized classes from more general ones. Inheritance follows the “is-a” relationship, where a child class represents a more specific version of the parent class. Python supports both single and multiple inheritance, providing flexibility in designing class structures and enhancing code organization.