In computer science and probability theory, a random binary tree is a binary tree selected at random from some probability distribution on binary trees. Different distributions have been used, leading to different properties for these trees.

Random binary trees have been used for analyzing the average-case complexity of data structures based on binary search trees. For this application it is common to use random trees formed by inserting nodes one at a time according to a random permutation. The resulting trees are very likely to have logarithmic depth and logarithmic Strahler number. The treap and related balanced binary search trees use update operations that maintain this random structure even when the update sequence is non-random.

Other distributions on random binary trees include the uniform discrete distribution in which all distinct trees are equally likely, distributions on a given number of nodes obtained by repeated splitting, binary tries and radix trees for random data, and trees of variable size generated by branching processes.

For random trees that are not necessarily binary, see random tree.

A binary tree is a rooted tree in which each node may have up to two children (the nodes directly below it in the tree), and those children are designated as being either left or right. It is sometimes convenient instead to consider extended binary trees in which each node is either an external node with zero children, or an internal node with exactly two children. A binary tree that is not in extended form may be converted into an extended binary tree by treating all its nodes as internal, and adding an external node for each missing child of an internal node. In the other direction, an extended binary tree with at least one internal node may be converted back into a non-extended binary tree by removing all its external nodes. In this way, these two forms are almost entirely equivalent for the purposes of mathematical analysis, except that the extended form allows a tree consisting of a single external node, which does not correspond to anything in the non-extended form. For the purposes of computer data structures, the two forms differ, as the external nodes of the first form may be represented explicitly as objects in a data structure.

In a binary search tree the internal nodes are labeled by numbers or other ordered values, called keys, arranged so that an inorder traversal of the tree lists the keys in sorted order. The external nodes remain unlabeled. Binary trees may also be studied with all nodes unlabeled, or with labels that are not given in sorted order. For instance, the Cartesian tree data structure uses labeled binary trees that are not necessarily binary search trees.

A random binary tree is a random tree drawn from a certain probability distribution on binary trees. In many cases, these probability distributions are defined using a given set of keys, and describe the probabilities of binary search trees having those keys. However, other distributions are possible, not necessarily generating binary search trees, and not necessarily giving a fixed number of nodes.

For any sequence of distinct ordered keys, one may form a binary search tree in which each key is inserted in sequence as a leaf of the tree, without changing the structure of the previously inserted keys. The position for each insertion can be found by a binary search in the previous tree. The random permutation model, for a given set of keys, is defined by choosing the sequence randomly from the permutations of the set, with each permutation having equal probability.