A shepherd is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations; it exists in many parts of the globe, and it is an important part of pastoralist animal husbandry.

Because the occupation is so widespread, many religions and cultures have symbolic or metaphorical references to shepherds. For example, Jesus called himself the Good Shepherd, and ancient Greek mythologies highlighted shepherds such as Endymion and Daphnis. This symbolism and shepherds as characters are at the center of pastoral literature and art.

Shepherding is among the oldest occupations, beginning some 5,000 years ago in Asia Minor. Sheep were kept for their milk, their meat and especially their wool. Over the next thousand years, sheep and shepherding spread throughout Eurasia. Henri Fleisch tentatively suggested that the Shepherd Neolithic industry of Lebanon may date to the Epipaleolithic and that it may have been practised by one of the first cultures of nomadic shepherds in the Beqaa Valley.

Some sheep were integrated in the family farm along with other animals such as chickens and pigs. However to maintain a large flock, the sheep must be able to move from pasture to pasture. This required the development of an occupation separate from that of the farmer. The duty of shepherds was to keep their flock intact, protect it from predators and guide it to market areas in time for shearing. In ancient times, shepherds also commonly milked their sheep, and made cheese from this milk; a few shepherds still do this today.^{[citation needed]}

In many societies, shepherds were an important part of the economy. Unlike farmers, shepherds were often wage earners, being paid to watch the sheep of others. Shepherds also lived apart from society, being largely nomadic. It was mainly a job for solitary males without children, and new shepherds thus needed to be recruited externally.^{[citation needed]} Shepherds were most often the younger sons of farming peasants who did not inherit any land. In other societies, each family would have a family member to shepherd its flock, often a child, youth or an elder who could not help much with harder work; these shepherds were fully integrated in society.^{[citation needed]}

Shepherds would normally work in groups: either looking after one large flock, or each bringing their own and merging their responsibilities. They would live in small cabins, often shared with their sheep, and would buy food from local communities. Less often shepherds lived in covered wagons that traveled with their flocks.^{[citation needed]}

Shepherding developed only in certain areas. In the lowlands and river valleys, it was far more efficient to grow grain and cereals than to allow sheep to graze; thus the raising of sheep was confined to rugged and mountainous areas. In pre-modern times shepherding was thus centered on regions such as the Middle East, Greece, the Pyrenees, the Carpathian Mountains, Scotland and Northern England.^{[citation needed]}

The shepherd's crook is a strong multi-purpose stick or staff, often fashioned with a hooked end.