Maven is a build automation tool that is used to manage Java projects and their dependencies. It provides a standard way to organize Java projects and defines a build lifecycle with phases like compile, test, package, and deploy. Maven uses a pom.xml file to define project dependencies and plugins. Dependencies are downloaded from Maven repositories during the build process. Maven plugins are bound to phases of the build lifecycle to perform tasks like compiling code, running tests, packaging artifacts, and deploying builds. This standardizes builds and makes projects portable across systems.