What does a box plot show?

A box plot, also known as a whisker plot, visually summarizes the distribution of a dataset by displaying its median, quartiles, and potential outliers. The central box represents the interquartile range (IQR), which contains the middle 50% of the data, while the line inside the box indicates the median. Whiskers extend from the box to show the range of the data, excluding outliers, which are typically plotted as individual points. This graphical representation helps identify the spread, central tendency, and skewness of the data.