Views are a powerful tool in SQL for organizing and presenting data. They act as a window into a database, allowing users to see data in a specific way without needing to know the underlying table structure. Think of a view as a pre-built query that's stored in the database. Instead of writing the same query repeatedly, you can simply query the view. This is particularly useful for complex queries or when you want to present data in a specific format to different users. Views can also be used to restrict access to sensitive data by only showing relevant information to authorized users. For example, a view could show only sales figures for a specific region, or only customer information for active accounts. Views are not physical tables, meaning they don't store data. Instead, they store the query that defines the data they present. This makes them lightweight and efficient.