State refers to the data or values of variables that determine a system's behavior at a given moment in time.

State management is the process of managing and updating the state of a system over time, ensuring that it remains consistent and accurate. This is often a critical aspect of software development, particularly in larger and more complex applications.

There are several approaches to state management, including global state, local state, and centralized state management. Each approach has its own trade-offs and benefits, and the best approach for a given project will depend on the specific requirements and constraints of that project.

In web development, state management is a common challenge, as web applications are often composed of many components that need to access and update shared state. To address this challenge, various state management libraries and frameworks, such as Redux and MobX, have been developed to provide a centralized and consistent way of managing state across an application.