The World Orienteering Championships is the most prestigious event within the orienteering sports community. The 2015 World Orienteering Championships in Inverness, Scotland attracted nearly 400 competitors from 51 nations. Over 7000 spectators, 50% coming from abroad, attended the World Orienteering Championships and participated in the parallel event, the Scottish 6-days. The economic impact of the event was estimated at £9.4*. The World Orienteering Championships was broadcast to 9 national television markets and streamed live globally. 

The World Orienteering Championships is organised annually. Organisers are appointed previously for the years 2016, 2017 and 2018 and bidding for the 2019 event has been opened previously. 

The current program of the World Orienteering Championships includes both forest-based and urban-based competitions. To enable the global growth of orienteering and make the organisation of the World Orienteering Championships attractive to more major global venues, the General Assembly of the IOF decided in Inverness to organise the event in odd years with focus on the forest-based events and in even years with the urban-based events. 2020 is therefore the first opportunity to bid for the urban format World Orienteering Championships. 

The International Orienteering Federation has today opened the bidding window for the 2020 World Orienteering Championships to member federations and to interested venues. The bid documents can be downloaded from the IOF website 

www.orienteering.org . Bids shall be submitted by March 15th 2016. 

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* Economic impact figures published by The Moray Council and collected by Ekos Ltd, Glasgow.