Question

What is displacement? How is it different from distance? Is it a scalar quantity or vector quantity?

Answer 1

Displacement is the shortest distance between the initial and final point of the motion. It does not depends on the path, i.e. which path is being chosen for to travel, it only depends on the initial and final point of the journey.

Whereas, distance is the actual path of the journey .
Displacement is a vector quantity. As it shows magnitude as well as direction of the motion.

Answer 2

The change of position in a particular direction or the distance between the initial and final position of the object is called displacement.  
And

The total path length traversed by an object is called Distance

Displacement is a vector quantity :)