A plantation is a large farm or estate, usually in a tropical or subtropical country, where crops that are not consumed for food are grown for sale in distant markets, rather than for local consumption. Such crops include cotton, coffee, tobacco, sugar cane, sisal, and various oil seeds and rubber trees. Farms that produce alfalfa, Lespedeza, clover, and other forage crops are usually not called plantations. The term "plantation" has usually not included large orchards, but has included the planting of trees for lumber. A plantation is always a monoculture over a large area and does not include extensive naturally occurring stands of plants that have economic value. The use of the term is governed by the linguistic conventions of natural language and does not have the rigorous consistency of formal language.

One of the earliest examples of a plantation was the latifundia. In antiquity, these produced large quantities of wine and olive oil for export. Because of its large size, a plantation takes advantage of economy of scale. Protectionist policies and natural comparative advantage have contributed to determining where plantations have been located. Plantation agriculture grew rapidly with the increase in international trade and the development of a worldwide economy that followed the expansion of European colonial empires. Like every economic activity, it has changed over time. Earlier forms of plantation agriculture were associated with large disparities of wealth and income, foreign ownership and political influence, exploitative social systems such as indentured labor, and in the extreme case, slavery. The history of the environmental, social and economic issues relating to plantation agriculture are covered in articles that focus on those subjects.