En el ecosistema, hábitat es el ambiente que ocupa una población biológica. Es el espacio que reúne las condiciones adecuadas para que la especie pueda residir y reproducirse, perpetuando su presencia. Así, un hábitat queda descrito por los rasgos que lo definen ecológicamente, distinguiéndolo de otros hábitats en los que las mismas especies no podrían encontrar acomodo. El concepto de hábitat es utilizado por biólogos y ecólogos con una acepción, mientras que arquitectos y urbanistas lo hacen desde una visión antrópica. En el primer caso como el lugar con determinadas condiciones para que viva un determinado organismo, especie o comunidad vegetal o animal. En el segundo caso refiriéndose al espacio construido en el que vive el hombre. En este caso también se utiliza la expresión hábitat construido para diferenciarse del utilizado por la biología. El Día Mundial del Hábitat es el primer lunes de octubre de cada año. Fue establecido por la ONU en 1985 para reconocer los avances que se logran en el hábitat humano haciendo especial acento en las ciudades, temas de género, la vivienda, el trabajo, entre otros.

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A habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant, or other type of organism. The term typically refers to the zone in which the organism lives and where it can find food, shelter, protection and mates for reproduction. It is the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the physical environment that surrounds a species population. A habitat is made up of physical factors such as soil, moisture, range of temperature, and light intensity as well as biotic factors such as the availability of food and the presence or absence of predators. Every organism has certain habitat needs for the conditions in which it will thrive, but some are tolerant of wide variations while others are very specific in their requirements. A habitat is not necessarily a geographical area, it can be the interior of a stem, a rotten log, a rock or a clump of moss, and for a parasitic organism it is the body of its host, part of the host's body such as the digestive tract, or a single cell within the host's body. Habitat types include polar, temperate, subtropical and tropical. The terrestrial vegetation type may be forest, steppe, grassland, semi-arid or desert. Fresh water habitats include marshes, streams, rivers, lakes, ponds and estuaries, and marine habitats include salt marshes, the coast, the intertidal zone, reefs, bays, the open sea, the sea bed, deep water and submarine vents. Habitats change over time. This may be due to a violent event such as the eruption of a volcano, an earthquake, a tsunami, a wildfire or a change in oceanic currents; or the change may be more gradual over millennia with alterations in the climate, as ice sheets and glaciers advance and retreat, and as different weather patterns bring changes of precipitation and solar radiation. Other changes come as a direct result of human activities; deforestation, the ploughing of ancient grasslands, the diversion and damming of rivers, the draining of marshland and the dredging of the seabed. The introduction of alien species can have a devastating effect on native wildlife, through increased predation, through competition for resources or through the introduction of pests and diseases to which the native species have no immunity.

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