World Championship in Croatia is 21. in the series, when it comes to the biggest handball competition, whose tradition goes back far in 1938, when the first World Championship was played in Germany. It was a handball different from today, the so-called „great handball“, and the first world champions were Germans. This is the reason why the last World Championship, before this Croatian, Germans as hosts called “Back home”. They returned completely. 16 years after World Championship in Germany, another “great handball” took place in Sweden, where the hosts were also the winners.

Since 1958 World Championship is hold on small courts, what we have today. The first World Championship in modern handball took place in the DDR in 1958. World champion became the Swedes.

After, on the top rotated great generations of Romania with its famous coach Nicolea Nedef; afterwards Russians dominated with their strength and height, as well as quickness, led by great players and coaches as Jeftusenko and Mironovic. Handball evolved, just as it does today.
Swedes ended Russian domination in the 1990s with their gold in Czechoslovakia. That was turning point in the world handball standings. Bengt Johanssons team remained on record as the greatest generation of 1990s. Russia has continued persisting, and France has grown with Daniel Costantini and marked its handball history with two gold medals, 1995 in Iceland and on the World Championship in 2001, whom they were hosts.
Revolution in the world handball standings took place in Portugal' in 2003, when the champion title went to Croatia, and two years later it is managed by Spain on the finals held in Tunisia. Handball went in the direction of dynamics.
We need to say that the World Championship started with 4 team, developed from the 8, over 12, to 16 as they were until 1995 on Iceland, where was the first time that all 24 teams performed, as is it today.
Nine countries are winning world titles. Teams with the greatest number of wins were Swedes and Romanians. Even four times, they reach the top. USSR / Russia follow them with three winnings. Sweden played even 12 semi-finals, 7 finals and by that is the most successful, though Romania with its coach Nedef stayed specificity for all time, because it played four finals and won all of them.

World Championship had their big stars. Gheorge Grui, Ioan Moser, Vojtech Mares, Hans Lubking, Paul Tiedemann, Stefan Birtalan, Joachim Deckarm, Vladimir Maksimov, Hrvoje Horvat, Weiland Schmidt, Vasile Stinge, Frank Wahl, Veselin Vujovic, Aleksander Karsakijevic, Peter Kovacs, Erhard Wunderlich, Magnus Wislander, Staffan Olsson, Tomas Svensson, Andrej Lavrov, Frederic Volle, Bruno Martini, Jackson Richardson, Ivano Balic, Petar Metlicic, Iker Romer, Mateo Garralde and their excellent performances will remain for all times.