The FIVB Beach Volelyball SWATCH World Championships (also known as the Beach Volleyball World Championships) is an international beach volleyball double-gender championship held every two years.

The first official edition of this event, was the 1997 Beach Volleyball World Championships in Los Angeles, California. Before that there had been ten unofficial championships (1987-1996) all held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was hosted in 2005 in Berlin, in 2007 in Gstaad, in 2009 in Stavanger and in 2011 in Rome. The 2013 edition is due to take place in Stare Jablonki, Poland.

The FIVB Volleyball World Championship is an international men's and women's indoor volleyball competition. It is the oldest and most important of all the international events organised by the FIVB and must not be confused with the FIVB World Cup or the FIVB World League/FIVB World Grand Prix.

The history of the World Championship goes back to the beginnings of volleyball as a professional, high level sport. One of the first concrete measures taken by the FIVB after its foundation in 1947 was the establishment of an international competition involving teams from more than one continent. In 1949, the first edition was played in Prague, Czechoslovakia. At that point, the tournament was men's only and still restricted to Europe.

Three years later, a women's version was introduced; the events were synchronized and expanded to include nations from Asia, and began to be held in 4-year cycles. By the following edition, there were also teams from South, Central and North America.

Since volleyball was to be added to the Olympic Program in 1964, the 4-cycles were advanced in 2 years after the fourth edition (1960), so that the World Championship may alternate with the Summer Olympics. As of 1970, teams from Africa also took part in the competition, and the original goal of having members from all five continental confederations in the games was achieved.

A world championship(s) is the top achievement for any sport or contest. The title is usually awarded by contests, ranking systems, stature, ability, etc. This determines the best nation, team, individual (or other entity) in the world in a particular field. Certain sports do not have a world championship, instead they may organise a world cup, or they may organize both. Often, the use of the term cup or championship in this sense is just a choice of words. Some sports have multiple champions because of multiple organizations such as mixed martial arts, boxing and wrestling.

Certain sports do not have a world championships or a world cup as such, but may have one or several world champions. Professional boxing for example has several world champions at different weights, but each one of them is decided by a "title fight", not a tournament.

A full list is presented at List of world cups and world championships

In this table includes the medals in both individual and team events. In PaleGreen still active athletes.