What is HEAD in Git?
There is a, perhaps subtle, but important misconception in a number these answers. I thought I'd add my answer to clear it up.
What is
HEAD?
HEAD is YOU
HEADis a symbolic reference pointing to wherever you are in your commit history. It follows you wherever you go, whatever you do, like a shadow. If you make a commit, HEAD will move. If you checkout something, HEAD will move. Whatever you do, if you have moved somewhere new in your commit history, HEAD has moved along with you. To address one common misconception: you cannot detach yourself from HEAD. That is not what a detached HEAD state is. If you ever find yourself thinking: "oh no, i'm in detached HEAD state! I've lost my HEAD!" Remember, it's your HEAD. HEAD is you. You haven't detached from the HEAD, you and your HEAD have detached from something else.
What can HEAD attach to?
HEAD can point to a commit, yes, but typically it does not. Let me say that again. Typically HEAD does not point to a commit. It points to a branch reference. It is attached to that branch, and when you do certain things (e.g., commit or reset), the attached branch will move along with HEAD. You can see what it is pointing to by looking under the hood.
cat .git/HEAD
Normally you'll get something like this:
ref: refs/heads/master
Sometimes you'll get something like this:
a3c485d9688e3c6bc14b06ca1529f0e78edd3f86
That's what happens when HEAD points directly to a commit. This is called a detached HEAD, because HEAD is pointing to something other than a branch reference. If you make a commit in this state, master, no longer being attached to HEAD, will no longer move along with you. It does not matter where that commit is. You could be on the same commit as your master branch, but if HEAD is pointing to the commit rather than the branch, it is detached and a new commit will not be associated with a branch reference.
You can look at this graphically if you try the following exercise. From a git repository, run this. You'll get something slightly different, but they key bits will be there. When it is time to checkout the commit directly, just use whatever abbreviated hash you get from the first output (here it is a3c485d).
git checkout master
git log --pretty=format:"%h: %d" -1
# a3c485d: (HEAD -> master)
git checkout a3c485d -q # (-q is for dramatic effect)
git log --pretty=format:"%h: %d" -1
# a3c485d: (HEAD, master)
OK, so there is a small difference in the output here. Checking out the commit directly (instead of the branch) gives us a comma instead of an arrow. What do you think, are we in a detached HEAD state? HEAD is still referring to a specific revision that is associated with a branch name. We're still on the master branch, aren't we?
Now try:
git status
# HEAD detached at a3c485d
Nope. We're in 'detached HEAD' state.
You can see the same representation of (HEAD -> branch) vs. (HEAD, branch) with git log -1.
In conclusion
HEAD is you. It points to whatever you checked out, wherever you are. Typically that is not a commit, it is a branch. If HEAD does point to a commit (or tag), even if it's the same commit (or tag) that a branch also points to, you (and HEAD) have been detached from that branch. Since you don't have a branch attached to you, the branch won't follow along with you as you make new commits. HEAD, however, will.
To quote other people:
A head is simply a reference to a commit object. Each head has a name (branch name or tag name, etc). By default, there is a head in every repository called master. A repository can contain any number of heads. At any given time, one head is selected as the “current head.” This head is aliased to HEAD, always in capitals".
Note this difference: a “head” (lowercase) refers to any one of the named heads in the repository; “HEAD” (uppercase) refers exclusively to the currently active head. This distinction is used frequently in Git documentation.
Another good source that quickly covers the inner workings of git (and therefore a better understanding of heads/HEAD) can be found here. References (ref:) or heads or branches can be considered like post-it notes stuck onto commits in the commit history. Usually they point to the tip of series of commits, but they can be moved around with git checkout or git reset etc.
You can think of the HEAD as the "current branch". When you switch branches with git checkout, the HEAD revision changes to point to the tip of the new branch.
You can see what HEAD points to by doing:
cat .git/HEAD
In my case, the output is:
$ cat .git/HEAD
ref: refs/heads/master
It is possible for HEAD to refer to a specific revision that is not associated with a branch name. This situation is called a detached HEAD.