A potato chip or crisp is a thin slice of potato, deep fried or baked until crisp. Potato chips serve as an appetizer, side dish, or snack. Commercial varieties are packaged for sale, usually in bags. The simplest chips of this kind are just cooked and salted, but manufacturers can add a wide variety of seasonings (mostly made using herbs, spices, cheese, artificial additives or MSG). Chips are an important part of the snack food market in English-speaking countries and many other Western nations.

There is little consistency in the English speaking world for names of fried potato cuttings. North American English uses 'chips' for the above mentioned dish -- this term is also used in continental Europe -- and sometimes 'crisps' for the same made from batter, and 'French fries' for the hot crispy batons with a soft core. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, 'crisps' are the brittle slices eaten at room temperature and 'chips' refer to the hot dish (as in 'fish and chips'). In Australia, New Zealand and some parts of South Africa, both forms of potato product are simply known as 'chips', as are the larger "home-style" potato chips. Sometimes the distinction is made between 'hot chips' (French fried potatoes) and 'packet chips'.

Non-potato based chips also exist. Kumara (sweet potato) chips are eaten in New Zealand and Japan; parsnip crisps are available in the United Kingdom. India is famous for a large number of localized 'chips shops', selling not only potato chips but also other varieties such as plantain chips, yam chips and even carrot chips. In many countries potato chips have been criticized because of their high fat percentage (approx. 35%) and their acrylamide content.