The first Canoe Sprint World Championships were held in Vaxholm, Sweden, in 1938. There were 12 events contested, ten for men and two for women.

The second World Championships were not held until a decade later, in 1948 in London. Only five events were held this time, four for men and one for women. Two years later in Copenhagen the program had blown out again to 15 events, but still there were only two races for women - the K1 and K2 500 metres.

World Championships were then held sporadically until 1970, when Copenhagen kicked off the start of a new era which saw World Championships contested every non-Olympic year.

The dominant force in canoe sprint is Hungary, winners of 205 world titles in the discipline, well ahead of the next-highest Germany (121).

Katalin Kovács has claimed 31 of Hungary's 194 world titles in canoe sprint, a record for an individual. Her triumphs at the world championships spanned from 1998 to 2011, across eight different kayak disciplines. This included the K4W 500m, and a notable victory in 1999 when she was a part of the team that beat a German boat including Birgit Fischer, winner of 11 world titles in K4W 500m, a record for an individual in a specific canoe sprint event.