The document explains the Unified Modeling Language (UML), a standard for modeling and documenting software systems, emphasizing its significance in object-oriented design. It highlights UML's characteristics such as being an open standard that facilitates communication among stakeholders, its evolution from various methodologies in the 1990s, and the existence of different models and views within UML. Additionally, the document notes UML's broad application support across multiple software tools and its multi-diagrammatic nature, which provides partial representations of systems tailored to various stakeholder perspectives.