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Marmots are members of the genus Marmota, in the rodent family Sciuridae (squirrels).

Marmots are generally large ground squirrels. Those most often referred to as marmots tend to live in mountainous areas such as the Alps, northern Apennines, Carpathians, Tatra, and Pyrenees in Europe, the Rockies, the Black Hills and the Sierra Nevada in the United States, Northern Canada, Deosai plateau in Pakistan and Ladakh in India. However, the groundhog is also properly called a marmot, while the similarly-sized but more social prairie dog is not classified in the genus Marmota but in the related genus Cynomys.

Marmots typically live in burrows, and hibernate there through the winter. Most marmots are highly social, and use loud whistles to communicate with one another, especially when alarmed.

Marmots mainly eat greens. They eat many types of grasses, berries, lichens, mosses, roots and flowers.