SQLContext is a component in Apache Spark that provides a programming interface for working with structured and semi-structured data using SQL queries. It allows users to execute SQL queries over DataFrames and supports operations like reading from and writing to various data sources, such as Parquet, JSON, and Hive. SQLContext simplifies the process of integrating Spark with SQL databases and enables developers to leverage the power of Spark's distributed processing for SQL-based analytics. It has been largely replaced by SparkSession in newer versions of Spark, which combines the functionality of SQLContext and HiveContext.