What is the difference between an instance variable and a property?

An instance variable is a variable that is declared inside a class and is accessible from any method within that class. An example of an instance variable would be:

class Person {
private String name;

public Person(String name) {
this.name = name;
}

public String getName() {
return name;
}
}

A property is a special type of variable that is used to access a class’s member variables from outside the class. An example of a property would be:

class Person {
private String name;

public Person(String name) {
this.name = name;
}

public String getName() {
return name;
}

public void setName(String name) {
this.name = name;
}
}