Neighbours is an Australian television soap opera, which has aired since 18 March 1985. It was created by television executive Reg Watson. The Seven Network commissioned the show following the success of Watson's earlier soap Sons and Daughters. Although successful in Melbourne, Neighbours underperformed in the Sydney market and was cancelled by Seven four months after it began airing. It was immediately commissioned by rival Network Ten for a second production season, which began screening on 20 January 1986. Neighbours went on to become the longest-running drama series in Australian television history. In 2005, it was inducted into the Logie Hall of Fame.

The storylines concern the lives of the people who live and work in Erinsborough, a fictional suburb of Melbourne, Victoria. The series centres on the residents of Ramsay Street, a cul-de-sac, and its neighbouring area, the Lassiters complex, which includes a bar, hotel, café, police station, lawyers' office and park. Neighbours began with a focus on three households created by Watson – including the Ramsay and Robinson families, who have a long history, and an ongoing rivalry. Over the serial's early years, three additional houses on the street were introduced as regular settings. Pin Oak Court, in Vermont South, is the real cul-de-sac that has doubled for Ramsay Street. The houses featured are real and the residents allowed the production to shoot external scenes in their yards. The interior scenes were filmed at the Global Television studios in Forest Hill.

Through its entire run in Australia, Neighbours was screened as a 22-minute episode each weeknight in an early-evening slot. It moved to Ten's digital channel, Eleven (later rebranded 10 Peach) on 11 January 2011, and was broadcast each weeknight at 6:30 pm. The show was produced by Fremantle Australia and has been sold to over sixty countries around the world, making it one of Australia's most successful media exports. Neighbours had been especially successful in the United Kingdom, where it was first screened on 27 October 1986 on BBC One, and achieved huge popularity among British audiences in the late 1980s and 1990s. In 2008, it moved in the UK to Channel 5; since 2008 it had been largely paid for by the UK broadcaster as it was no longer commercially viable for Ten to fund it alone. In 2018, the show became the first Australian drama to air all year round after securing a new deal with Channel 5. In February 2022, Channel 5 announced that they would be dropping Neighbours from their network and the cancellation of the show was confirmed the following month. The show's finale was broadcast as a 90-minute long episode in Australia on 28 July 2022 on Network 10 and 10 Peach, while the finale in the United Kingdom aired as an hour-long episode on 29 July 2022. The finale was broadcast in Ireland on 3 August 2022 and in New Zealand on 2 September 2022. In November 2022, it was announced that Amazon Freevee and Fremantle had agreed to a deal that would restart the series, and production resumed on 17 April 2023.