A symlink is a symbolic link.

It's a special file existing in the FileSystem space which just points to another file (or directory). If you access the symlink from an application, it appears transparent for the application and you will really access the file or directory which the symlink is pointing to.

Note: If you delete the symlink, you are only deleting the symlink! Not the file or directory it was pointing to!

Although a symlink shows up with file permissions and user/group ownerships, the access rights are only determined by its target permissions and user/group ownerships!

You create a symlink with

ln -s <destination file or directory> <name of the symlink> 

See also Symbolic_link