Which of the following best describes a relational database?

A relational database is fundamentally structured around the concept of tables that store data in a structured format. Each table consists of rows and columns, where rows represent records and columns represent attributes of those records. What makes relational databases particularly powerful is their ability to link tables together based on common attributes, often referred to as keys. For example, a customer table might be linked to an orders table through a common customer ID, allowing for complex queries and data retrieval that reflects relationships within the data.

This ability to interconnect data through related tables is crucial for ensuring data integrity, enabling efficient data organization, and facilitating complex queries that can pull meaningful insights from multiple data sources. As a result, options that imply a lack of relationships between data, such as a flat file database with no relationships or merely a collection of files, do not encapsulate the core characteristics of relational databases. Similarly, while data management systems do help in managing complex data, the essence of a relational database lies specifically in its relational model, which distinguishes it from other database types.