Can you explain binary trees?

A binary tree is a hierarchical data structure in which each node has at most two children, commonly referred to as the left child and the right child. The defining property of a binary tree is that it has a single root node, and every node can have zero, one, or two children. Binary trees are used for efficient searching, sorting, and representing hierarchical data. A common variant is the binary search tree (BST), where for any node, all keys in the left subtree are less than the node’s key, and all keys in the right subtree are greater. This property allows for average‑case search, insertion, and deletion operations in O(log n) time when the tree is balanced. Binary trees also form the basis for more advanced structures like AVL trees, red‑black trees, and heaps.