CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, defines the presentation of HTML elements and has evolved through versions CSS1, CSS2, and currently CSS3. It allows styling through various methods, including external stylesheets for site-wide changes, internal styles for individual documents, and inline styles for specific elements, with an emphasis on efficiency and maintainability. Though CSS offers advantages like faster page load times and ease of maintenance, browser compatibility can be a challenge due to differing support for various CSS features.