How do electric charges create electric fields?

An electric field is an electric property associated with every point in space where charge is present. Rather than viewing electric force as a direct interaction between two charges at a distance, physicists consider a source charge to create an electric field that extends into the surrounding space. When a second charge is placed in this region, it interacts directly with the field.12

The strength and direction of this field are defined by the force exerted per unit of positive charge. For a point charge, the magnitude of the field is directly proportional to the amount of charge and inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source. The field is a vector quantity, meaning it has both magnitude and direction. By convention, the direction of the field is the same as the direction of the force that would be exerted on a positive test charge.134

If multiple charges are present, the total electric field at any point is determined by the superposition principle, which is the vector sum of the individual fields produced by each source charge.43