It is a protocol used to advertise the set of networks that can be reached with in an autonomous system. BGP enables this information to be shared with the autonomous system. This is newer than EGP (Exterior Gateway Protocol).
The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the core routing protocol of the Internet. It maintains a table of IP networks or 'prefixes' which designate network reachability among autonomous systems (AS). It is described as a path vector protocol. BGP does not use traditional Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) metrics, but makes routing decisions based on path, network policies and/or rulesets.