Katara is a fictional character in Nickelodeon's animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender. The character, created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, is voiced by Mae Whitman. Katara is a waterbender from the South Pole's Water Tribe, a race of people who can control and manipulate water.

Katara earns the title of Master Waterbender from Master Paku of the Northern Water Tribe by the age of fourteen, something very rare. She is the last remaining waterbender in the Southern Tribe (Katara's Home) because of continuous raids on her village by the Fire Nation, specifically by the Southern Raiders. She, along with her older brother, Sokka, discover an Airbender named Aang frozen in an iceberg, the long-lost Avatar, and accompanies him on his quest to defeat the imperialistic Fire Nation and bring peace to the war-torn nations.

According to the unaired pilot episode included on the Avatar Complete Book 1 Collection DVD set, Katara’s name was originally Kya, but was changed. The name Kya would be later used for her deceased mother. In “Tales of Ba Sing Se”, Katara’s name was written as .

Kǎ () means to check, block, or card; Tǎ () means pagoda; and Lā () means to pull. The character Lā is the same La as the Ocean Spirit’s name from the season one's finale, while the character for Kǎ also appears in Sokka's name. In the commentary of the unaired pilot episode, co creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino state that Katara's “hair loopies” used to hang down but was changed because the animators said it would be too hard to animate and suggested that they’d be looped back rather than beaded locks.

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