A habitat is the natural environment of a plant, animal, or other organism, providing the organisms that live there with food, water, shelter, and space to survive. Habitats consist of both biotic and abiotic factors, with biotic factors being living things and abiotic factors being nonliving things. A habitat can be defined as the natural environment of an organism, the type of place in which it is natural for it to live and grow. It is similar in meaning to a biotope, an area of uniform environmental conditions associated with a particular community of plants and animals. Habitat types are environmental categorizations of different environments based on the characteristics of a given geographical area, particularly vegetation and climate. Thus habitat types do not refer to a single species but to multiple species living in the same area. Examples of terrestrial habitats include forest, steppe, grassland, semi-arid or desert, while freshwater habitats include lakes, rivers, billabongs, wetlands, and ponds. Coastal habitats include beaches, sand dunes, rock pools, estuaries, and mangroves, while marine habitats include the open ocean and coral reefs. Polar habitats are also a type of habitat, and they are characterized by extreme cold and long periods of darkness.

Habitat destruction, also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction, is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. This can occur due to human activities such as deforestation, urbanization, and pollution, as well as natural disasters such as wildfires and floods.