Graphs consist of vertices connected by edges. Large graphs with billions of vertices are studied theoretically to understand their properties regardless of small changes in definition. There are different types of graphs including weighted, undirected, directed, connected, and complete graphs. Graph traversal algorithms like depth-first search (DFS) and breadth-first search (BFS) are used to search graphs, with DFS using a stack and BFS using a queue. Graph theory has applications in modeling networks, computer architectures, and optimization problems.