Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm that represents concepts as "objects" that have properties and behaviors. The key OOP concepts are encapsulation, inheritance, abstraction, and polymorphism. Encapsulation groups data and functions together in classes. Inheritance allows child classes to inherit attributes and behaviors from parent classes. Abstraction hides unnecessary details and focuses on important aspects. Polymorphism allows the same methods to work with different object types. OOP aims to make code reusable, modular, and easier to maintain.