In Python, a data type is a classification of the type of data that a variable or an object can hold. It determines the nature of the data and the operations that can be performed on it.
For example , the data type 'int' represents an integer number, and the data type 'str' represents a string of characters. The data type of a variable can be checked using the 'type()' function in Python.
Data types in Python can be broadly classified into built-in data types and user-defined data types. Built-in data types are those that are pre-defined in the Python language and include numbers, strings, lists, tuples, sets, dictionaries, and more. User-defined data types, on the other hand, are created by the programmer to suit their specific requirements.