C is a general-purpose programming language developed in the 1970s and closely associated with UNIX. It is widely used due to its portability, standard library concepts, powerful operators, and ability to access hardware. The document provides an introduction to C programming and data structures, covering topics like variables, data types, operators, expressions, and common data structures like arrays, stacks, queues, linked lists, trees, and graphs. Examples are given for many C programming concepts.