Flamenco (Spanish pronunciation: [flaˈmeŋko]) is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and Murcia. In a wider sense, the term is used to refer to a variety of both contemporary and traditional musical styles typical of southern Spain. Flamenco is closely associated to the gitanos of the Romani ethnicity who have contributed significantly to its origination and professionalization. However, its style is uniquely Andalusian and flamenco artists have historically included Spaniards of both gitano and non-gitano heritage.

The oldest record of flamenco music dates to 1774 in the book Las Cartas Marruecas (The Moroccan Letters) by José Cadalso. The development of flamenco over the past two centuries is well documented: "the theatre movement of sainetes (one-act plays) and tonadillas, popular song books and song sheets, customs, studies of dances, and toques, perfection, newspapers, graphic documents in paintings and engravings. ... in continuous evolution together with rhythm, the poetic stanzas, and the ambiance."

On 16 November 2010, UNESCO declared flamenco one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

Historically, the term flamenco was used to identify the Romani people (gitanos) of Spain. The English traveller George Borrow who travelled through Spain during the 1830s stated that the gitanos were also called Flemish (in Spanish, 'flamenco') due to German and Flemish being erroneously considered synonymous. According to flamencologist Cristina Cruces-Roldán, a year prior to Borrow's account, there already existed a gitano party in Madrid that was clearly identified as flamenco. This equivalency between gitano and flamenco is also noted by Manuel Fernández y González, Demófilo, and the scholar Irving Brown who stated in 1938 that "flamenco is simply another term for gitano, with special connotations."

The origins of the term lie in the sociological prejudice towards the Roma who were seen as ruffians and cocky troublemakers by the Spaniards and were thus associated with the 18th century German colonists of the Sierra Morena who formed groups of urban Bohemians that lived outside the law and were seen as idle and lazy. Other less successful hypotheses include those of Felipe Pedrell and Carlos Alemendros who state that while the term flamenco is Spanish for Flemish, it is actually synonymous with cantador (professional singer) in reference to the group of Flemish singers brought by Spanish King Carlos I in 1516. Another hypothesis that is not widely accepted is the Arabist theory of Blas Infante, which in his book Orígenes de lo flamenco (Origins of flamenco) presents flamenco as a phonetic deformation of Arabic fellah-mengu (runaway laborer) or was derived from the Arabic terms Felah-Mengus, which together mean "wandering peasant".

The first use of the term flamenco to refer to the music genre appears in a 1847 newspaper article of El Espectador where it was referred to as a "gitano genre". In the early years of flamenco, the term was versatile and was used to refer to a variety of concepts in the gitano-Andalusian world. For example, in the 1860s-70s this versatility was exemplified through its use to refer to a musical style and a certain aesthetic, manners, and way of life that were perceived to be gitano. At that time, flamenco was not a strict genre but a way of performing music in a gitano-Andalusian style.

There are hypotheses that point to the influence on flamenco of types of dance from the Indian subcontinent; the place of origin of the Romani people. The North Indian scales of flamenco were introduced to Andalusia by the Romani migrations from Northern India. These Roma migrants also brought bells, and an extensive repertoire of songs and dances. Upon arrival to Andalusia in the 15th century, they were exposed to the rich Arab-Andalusian music culture, itself a hybrid of Spanish music tradition going back to the 8th century with the establishment of Al-Andalus, which brought in traditions and music from the Arabian peninsula, Northern Africa and Sephardic features. Some of the instruments associated with flamenco and Spanish folklore in different regions today, are the wooden castanets and tambourines, both believed to originate during the Al Andalus period. This centuries-long period of cultural intermingling, formed the roots of flamenco song and dance genres.

It is believed that the flamenco genre emerged at the end of the 18th century in cities and agrarian towns of Baja Andalusia, highlighting Jerez de la Frontera as the first written vestige of this art, although there is practically no data related to those dates and the manifestations of this time are more typical of the bolero school than of flamenco. It appeared as a modern art form from the convergence of the urban subaltern groups, gitano communities, and journeyman of Andalusia that formed the marginalized flamenco artistic working class who established flamenco as a singular art form, marked from the beginning by the gitano brand. Andalusia was the origin and cradle of the early flamenco cantaores and of the three or four dozen gitano families who created and cultivated flamenco.