What is the purpose of the Error class, and is it checked or unchecked?

The Error class in Java represents serious errors that are usually not handled by the application, such as virtual machine errors (OutOfMemoryError, StackOverflowError). These are unchecked exceptions, as they inherit from Throwable but not from Exception.

Checked exceptions require mandatory handling or declaration in the method, whereas Error and its subclasses are usually not handled because they indicate problems that are difficult or impossible to recover from.

Example:

try {
    // code
} catch (Error e) {
    // generally not recommended to catch Error
}