What are the Record Types in Salesforce?

Record Types in Salesforce allow you to customize various features of both standard and custom objects based on profile and when different layouts are to be selected for particular pick list field value. Record type does not affect record level security i.e. if a user does not have view or edit permission of an object (or fields in the object), same permissions will be continued even if the record type is made available for that user. Multiple record types can be created for the same object to customize as needed.