R is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. It includes facilities for data manipulation, calculation, graphical display, and programming. Some key features of R include effective data handling, a suite of operators for calculations on arrays and matrices, graphical facilities, and a programming language with conditionals, loops, and functions. Common data structures in R include vectors, matrices, factors, lists, and data frames. Basic operations include arithmetic, logical operations, indexing, subsetting, applying functions, binding, and coercing between different structures.