What is the role of proxy objects in Hibernate and why are they created?

In Hibernate, proxy objects are used to implement lazy loading. Instead of immediately loading all related objects from the database, Hibernate creates proxies — special placeholder objects that look like real entities, but their data is loaded only when first accessed.

This helps improve performance and reduce database load by loading only the necessary data as needed.

Proxies are automatically created by Hibernate when lazy loading is configured for associations between entities.