ES6 stands for ECMAScript 6, which is the 6th version of the ECMAScript programming language and was released in 2015. It is also known as ECMAScript 2015. ECMAScript is the standardization of JavaScript, which is a general-purpose scripting language that conforms to the ECMAScript specification. ES6 introduced many new features to JavaScript, including classes, arrow functions, variables (let, const, var), array methods like .map(), destructuring, modules, and the spread operator. It also allows function parameters to have default values. ES6 is widely used in modern web development and is the foundation of many popular JavaScript frameworks and libraries, including React.