  The era of fast radio bursts (FRBs) was open in 2007, when a very bright
radio pulse of unknown origin was discovered occasionally in the archival data
of Parkes Telescope. Over the past fifteen years, this mysterious phenomenon
have caught substantial attention among the scientific community and become one
of the hottest topic in high-energy astrophysics. The total number of events
has a dramatic increase to a few hundred recently, benefiting from new
dedicated surveys and improved observational techniques. Our understanding of
these bursts has been undergoing a revolutionary growth with observational
breakthroughs announced consistently. In this chapter, we will give a
comprehensive introduction of FRBs, including the latest progress. Starting
from the basics, we will go through population study, inherent physical
mechanism, and all the way to the application in cosmology. Plenty of open
questions exist right now and there is more surprise to come in this active
young field.
