Survivor: Redemption Island is the twenty-second season of the American CBS competitive reality television series Survivor. It premiered on February 16, 2011. Applications were due in January 2010, and filming lasted from August to September 2010. The season was filmed near San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, the same location as the previous season. The season featured returning players Russell Hantz and Rob Mariano, alongside 16 new contestants.

Mariano was named the winner in the final episode on May 15, 2011, defeating Phillip Sheppard and Natalie Tenerelli in an 8–1–0 jury vote. In addition, Mariano won $100,000 as the "Sprint Player of the Season," receiving 40% of the fans' votes; Matt Elrod, with 36%, received the next-highest total.

This season introduced "Redemption Island" to the American version of Survivor, based in part on concepts already used in foreign versions of the show, including "Moondram Ulagam" (3rd Island) in the Tamil version. "The Island of the Dead" in the Israeli version, "Isla Purgatoryo" (Purgatory Island) in the Philippine version's second season, "Ghost Island" in the Serbian version's second season, and the duels in the 2002 Swedish edition.

Instead of being out of the game immediately upon being voted out of their tribe, the voted off contestant would be taken to a secluded area known as Redemption Island. Once there, they were to sustain themselves in the same manner as when living with the tribe: living on limited food, water and shelter. They would be joined by the next person voted out, and those two people would face off in a duel in an arena constructed to resemble an old ruined temple, joined by two representatives from each tribe acting as observers. The winner remains in the game, and continues living at Redemption Island. The loser exits the game for good, throwing their buff into a small fire pit on their way out of the arena. At two predetermined points during the game, at the merge and with four players remaining in the game proper, the winner of the Redemption Island duel returns to the game.

Host Jeff Probst compared Redemption Island to the Pearl Islands' Outcast tribe, stating that the latter concept did not seem to work well with the audience because the Outcast twist was not revealed to the players ahead of time, and was considered unfair to the remaining players in the game. However, the Outcast tribe survived on the same meager rations as everybody else in the game. With Redemption Island, the players were told at the start of the game of the existence and rules of Redemption Island, and Probst expected that this would affect how the tribes would vote out members. Probst also stated that the change would allow for the newer players to have a chance to recover from early mistakes such as choosing the wrong alliance or making a poor vote at Tribal Council. Entertainment Weekly's Dalton Ross correctly speculated that due to the Redemption Island duel as part of each episode, all regular challenges in the show were combined Reward/Immunity challenges until the tribes merged. The duels used at Redemption Island were scaled-back versions of previous challenges the show had used, and Probst stated that this was because these challenges "worked well" and eliminated any risk of the challenges going astray. The idea for allowing other players to watch the duel was a last-minute addition made by Mark Burnett. According to Probst, it gave those that attended the duel "valuable information" they could have used in their gameplay strategy, but also could have left them vulnerable to alliance shifts that might have occurred while they were absent from the tribe.

The players were initially split into two tribes of nine, each with one returning player: Ometepe and Zapatera, both named after the islands in Lake Nicaragua. Redemption Island featured the return of Rob Mariano and Russell Hantz, who both previously appeared on Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains and appeared separately on Marquesas and All-Stars (Mariano) and Samoa (Hantz). Their feud was a running storyline in the early episodes of Heroes vs. Villains, and was rekindled months later during the season's live finale. While the sixteen new players were initially assigned tribes prior to the start of the game, Rob and Russell drew buffs to determine which tribe they joined.

Notable new contestants include former NFL players Steve Wright and Grant Mattos; and former Miss Maine USA Ashley Underwood.

Phillip Sheppard, Andrea Boehlke, and Francesca Hogi returned for Survivor: Caramoan. Natalie Tenerelli and Stephanie Valencia were included on the public poll to choose the cast of Survivor: Cambodia, but neither received enough votes to be chosen. Boehlke returned for the third time in Survivor: Game Changers. Russell Hantz returned to the game on an international level as he appeared on Australian Survivor: Champions v Contenders (2018). Rob Mariano returned for the thirty-ninth season Survivor: Island of the Idols serving as a mentor to new contestants, and returned again the very next season to compete on Survivor: Winners at War.