The All England Open Badminton Championships is the world's oldest badminton tournament, held annually in England. With the introduction of the BWF's latest grading system, it was given Super Series status in 2007, upgraded to Super Series Premier status in 2011, and designated a Super 1000 event at the birth of the World Tour in 2018. The Super 1000 events, held in four historic strongholds of the sport of badminton (Great Britain, China, Malaysia and Indonesia) are the highest level events below the World Championships and Olympic Games tournaments, and broadly equivalent in stature, though apart from the All-England not in historicity, to the Grand Slam tournaments in tennis.

The world's first open tournament was held in the English town of Guildford in 1898, the success of which paved the way for the All England's inaugural edition, which was held at London's Horticultural Halls in 1899. Although the inaugural edition consisted of just the doubles format, the singles were introduced from the second edition onward. It was eventually considered – especially after the first Thomas Cup series in 1949 – the unofficial world championship of the sport until 1977, when the International Badminton Federation launched its official championships.

There were two instances when it was halted – from 1915 to 1919 (due to World War I) and from 1940 to 1946 (due to World War II).