What type of fruit is a strawberry botanically classified as?

A strawberry is botanically classified as an aggregate accessory fruit.

The red, fleshy part is not the fruit in the strict botanical sense. It is an enlarged flower receptacle, the tissue that supports the flower's reproductive structures. The small seed-like objects on the surface are individual dry fruits called achenes, and each achene contains a seed.

It is called aggregate because one flower produces many separate ovaries that develop together. It is called accessory because much of the edible tissue comes from a non-ovary part of the flower.

This explains why the strawberry is not a botanical berry, even though it is commonly treated as a berry in cooking and everyday language. Bananas and tomatoes are botanical berries, while raspberries and blackberries are aggregate fruits formed from many drupelets. These culinary and botanical categories do not always match.