The first BWF World Championships tournament was held in 1977.
The inaugural championships took place in Malmö, Sweden, and were organized by the International Badminton Federation, the predecessor of today's Badminton World Federation. The event crowned individual world champions in men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles.
The championships were originally scheduled on a three-year cycle. They later moved to a two-year schedule, and the modern calendar generally places them annually except in Olympic years, when the Olympic tournament serves as the sport's premier global individual competition.
The World Championships are distinct from the Thomas Cup, Uber Cup, and Sudirman Cup. Those are team events organized around national ties, while the World Championships award individual-event titles. They are also separate from the All England Open, whose history is older but whose status is that of a major open tournament rather than the official world championship.