The World Marathon Majors were established in 2006.
The series brought together the world’s leading marathon races into a season-long competition for elite athletes. Its original races were the Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York City marathons, alongside the biennial World Athletics Championships and Olympic marathon competitions.
The series was created to give top marathon performances a shared competitive structure and points system. The Abbott World Marathon Majors name was adopted later, after Abbott became the title sponsor.
Tokyo joined the series in 2013, becoming the sixth major marathon. That expansion is sometimes confused with the creation of the series itself, which took place seven years earlier.