Perl is a programming language that is commonly used for web development, system administration, and text processing. It is particularly well-suited for tasks that involve manipulating text files, such as data extraction, search and replace operations, and text pattern matching. It is also widely used for creating CGI scripts, which are used to create dynamic web pages. Additionally, Perl has a large number of libraries and modules that can be used to perform a wide range of tasks, such as connecting to databases, working with network protocols, and parsing XML.