A list in Python is a collection of values or ordered sequence of values enclosed in square brackets and separated by commas. There are multiple ways to declare and initialize a list, including assigning values like [1,2,3] or using the list() constructor to create a list from other data types like strings. Lists can store heterogeneous data types like integers, strings, floats. Users can input values into lists at runtime using input() and eval() to properly identify the data types.