Joins in a database refer to the method of combining rows from two or more tables based on a related column between them. This is typically done in a query to retrieve data that is spread across multiple tables and needs to be consolidated for analysis or reporting. There are different types of joins such as inner join, outer join, left join, and right join, each serving a different purpose for how data is merged from the tables. Joins are essential in relational databases to establish relationships between different entities and pull relevant data together when needed for querying.
