What are trees in data structures, and how are they used to organize hierarchical data?

A tree is a non-linear data structure that organizes data as a hierarchy of parent-child relationships. It is used when information naturally has levels, such as folders, company structures, or database indexes, making searching, inserting, and representing relationships more efficient than a flat list.

A tree models hierarchical data by storing elements as nodes connected by edges. Unlike arrays or linked lists, which usually represent a sequence, a tree represents relationships where one item can contain or lead to multiple related items.

The most important parts of a tree are: