What is the difference between a primary key and a surrogate key?

A primary key is a special constraint on a column or set of columns. A primary key constraint ensures that the column(s) so designated have no NULL values, and that every value is unique. Physically, a primary key is implemented by the database system using a unique index, and all the columns in the primary key must have been declared NOT NULL. A table may have only one primary key, but it may be composite (consist of more than one column).

A surrogate key is any column or set of columns that can be declared as the primary key instead of a "real" or natural key. Sometimes there can be several natural keys that could be declared as the primary key, and these are all called candidate keys. So a surrogate is a candidate key. A table could actually have more than one surrogate key, although this would be unusual. The most common type of surrogate key is an incrementing integer, such as an auto increment column in MySQL, or a sequence in Oracle, or an identity column in SQL Server.