OOP is an object-oriented programming design philosophy that uses classes and objects. Everything is modeled as self-contained objects that have properties and methods. The key concepts of OOP include encapsulation, inheritance, abstraction, and polymorphism. Encapsulation combines data and methods within an object. Inheritance allows classes to inherit properties and behaviors from parent classes. Abstraction hides unnecessary details and focuses on important aspects. Polymorphism allows the same method to operate on many different types of objects.