The Waltons is an American historical drama television series about a family in rural mountainous Western Virginia of the Appalachian Mountains / Allegheny Mountains / Blue Ridge Mountains chain, during the economic hardships and mass unemployment of the Great Depression in the 1930s and the subsequent United States home front during World War II in the 1940s. It was created by screenwriter / author Earl Hamner Jr., based on his 1961 book Spencer's Mountain. The Waltons aired from September 14, 1972, to June 4, 1981, and took place in the fictional Walton's Mountain, Virginia.

The TV film special The Homecoming: A Christmas Story was broadcast on December 19, 1971. Based on its high ratings and critical success, the CBS network ordered the first season of episodes (to be based on the same characters, with some changes in the casting) which became known as the television series The Waltons. Beginning in September 1972, the series was broadcast on the CBS network for nine seasons. After the series was canceled in 1981, three television film reunion sequels aired in 1982 on NBC, with three more in the 1990s back on CBS. The Waltons was produced by Lorimar Productions and distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution in later syndication after 1981.

Each episode's end sequence featured the voices of the family's members saying goodnight to one another before going to sleep for the night. According to the BBC which broadcast the series in the United Kingdom, "Goodnight, John-Boy" was one of the most common catchphrases of the 1970s.

The main story is set in Walton's Mountain, a fictional mountain community in the fictitious Jefferson County, Virginia. The stories are based upon events in Hamner's childhood home in Schuyler in Nelson County, Virginia.

The time period is from 1933 to 1946, during the Great Depression and World War II and the presidencies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman (who are occasionally mentioned); FDR's picture hangs in the Walton homestead and neighboring Ike Godsey's General Mercantile store. The deepest Depression year of 1933 is suggested by a mentioned reference to the opening of the Century of Progress exposition (World's Fair) held in Chicago, a brief shot of an antique automobile registration license plate, and when it is divulged in episode 5 that the date is in the spring of 1933. The last episode of season one, "An Easter Story," is set in February–April 1934. The year 1934 is covered over two seasons, while some successive years are covered over the course of a few months.

The series finale, "The Revel," revolves around a party and the invitation date is given as June 4, 1946. A span of 13 years is therefore covered in nine seasons. There are some chronological inconsistencies, most of which do not hinder the storyline. The episode depicting the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was first broadcast on December 7, 1978.

The first three reunion movies (A Wedding on Walton's Mountain, Mother's Day on Walton's Mountain, and A Day for Thanks on Walton's Mountain), all produced in 1982, and aired several weeks apart are set in the later post-war year of 1947. Of the later reunions TV films, A Walton Thanksgiving Reunion, filmed in 1993, is set in 1963, and revolves around the assassination of John F. Kennedy. A Walton Wedding, made two years later in 1995, is set in 1964, and A Walton Easter, filmed another two years following in 1997, is set in fictional 1969, with the social / political themes of the turbulent late 1960s intertwined in the updated story of the later generations of the Walton family.

The series began relating stories that occurred 39 years in the past and ended with its last reunion show set 28 years in the past.