Anthracosauria is an order of extinct reptile-like amphibians (in the broad sense) that flourished during the Carboniferous and early Permian periods, although precisely which species are included depends on one's definition of the taxon.

"Anthracosauria" is sometimes used to refer to all tetrapods more closely related to amniotes such as reptiles, mammals, and birds, than to lissamphibians such as frogs and salamanders.

Gauthier, Kluge and Rowe (1988) defined Anthracosauria as a clade including "Amniota plus all other tetrapods that are more closely related to amniotes than they are to amphibians" (Amphibia in turn was defined by these authors as a clade including Lissamphibia and those tetrapods that are more closely related to lissamphibians than they are to amniotes).

As Ruta, Coates and Quicke (2003) pointed out, this definition is problematic, because, depending on the exact phylogenetic position of Lissamphibia within Tetrapoda, using it might lead to the situation where some taxa traditionally classified as anthracosaurs, including even the genus Anthracosaurus itself, wouldn't belong to Anthracosauria.

Laurin (2001) created a different phylogenetic definition of Anthracosauria, defining it as "the largest clade that includes Anthracosaurus russelli but not Ascaphus truei".