Laravel is a popular PHP web framework created by Taylor Otwell in 2011. It follows the MVC pattern and simplifies development with modular structure, elegant syntax, and built-in features like routing, middleware, Blade templating, Eloquent ORM, and Artisan CLI. Laravel has a large community and is easy to learn and use due to its simplicity, modularity, and extensive built-in functionality that helps developers build cleaner code more efficiently.