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Natural World is a strand of British wildlife documentary programmes broadcast on BBC Two and BBC Two HD and regarded by the BBC as its flagship natural history series. It is the longest running documentary in its genre on British television, with nearly 500 episodes broadcast since its inception in 1983. Natural World programmes are typically one off films that take an in depth look at particular natural history events, stories or subjects from around the globe. Natural World was produced by the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol under the stewardship of the series editor, who was responsible for commissioning or acquiring content. Programmes are a mixture of in house productions, collaborative productions with other broadcasters or acquisitions from independent producers. There was 10 programmes broadcast each year, of which approximately half are produced in house. The series has close ties with the US series Nature, broadcast by PBS.

Natural World was initiated in 1983 as a wildlife specific spin off to The World About Us, itself a long running documentary strand on BBC Two. The World About Us was commissioned in 1967 by David Attenborough, at that time the Controller of BBC Two, to promote the new colour television service to British audiences. As the former head of the BBC's Travel and Exploration Unit in London, Attenborough realised that many of its telecine films had been shot in colour and would make ideal subjects for a documentary series, along with natural history content from the Bristol Unit and overseas broadcasters. The World About Us launched on 3 December 1967 to coincide with the first full evening of colour television in Britain, with Attenborough himself acting as series editor. The first programme was "Volcano", a film by the French vulcanologist Haroun Tazieff; the Natural History Unit's first contribution was "Forest and Firebird" featuring the brilliantly coloured scarlet ibis. Programmes such as these were no accident: The World About Us was described by Barry Paine, a frequent producer and narrator during its first two decades, as "a series designed to sell colour television sets". Due to the difficulty of sourcing colour films at the time, The World About Us started out with a broad remit of geography, anthropology and natural history as subject matter. Gradually, the contributions from the Travel and Exploration Unit diminished and the Natural History Unit's programmes grew in prominence. This was acknowledged by the BBC when the series was re launched as The Natural World in 1983; the title subsequently shortened to its current form in 2003. The first episode under the new title was "Save the Panda", broadcast on 30 October 1983 in what would become a regular time slot on Sunday evenings (where series editor Peter Jones claimed audiences were "hungry for natural history"). At the same time, researchers and field biologists were publishing many new discoveries about wildlife in scientific journals, providing the BBC with plentiful material for new programme ideas. As a result, the strand quickly expanded from 10 to 20 slots by 1985 and a number of special programmes were commissioned, helped by additional funding from BBC Enterprises (now BBC Worldwide). More recently, the running time has been extended to 60 minutes. The tone of the strand was set by its first series editor, Peter Jones, who gave his film makers the time and budget to explore their subjects in more detail. He also decided to avoid a house style in favour of a flexible approach where the style was chosen to match the subject of the documentary. This freedom from stylistic constraints gave film makers autonomy to make the programmes they wanted. As Natural World quickly established itself in the schedules, the series editors were able to take risks with unusual subjects which may otherwise have been avoided by broadcasters. According to Jones, "the idea was to give the audience a surprise each week. It was as far from the contemporary concept of formatted television as you could get." with different approaches to storytelling. Mike Gunton, series editor from 2001 to 2004, introduced more human elements into the programmes, granted filmmakers additional time in the field to get the shots they needed and continued to experiment with style. "Cats Under Serengeti Stars" was filmed entirely in black and white and "Dune" was told from the point of view of a grain of sand.

Natural World programmes were regularly nominated at television industry awards and wildlife film festivals. Notable award winners from the early years of the series include the 1986 Prix Italia for Vanishing Earth and an Emmy for cinematography for Kingdom of the Ice Bear. The Royal Television Society awarded Natural World the Best Documentary Strand in 1999 and photography prizes to the episodes "Mississippi, Tales of the Last River Rat" in 2005 and "Wye, Voices from the Valley" in 2007. "Mississippi, Tales of the Last River Rat" was also recognised at the Grierson Trust's British Documentary Awards in 2005. Other later award winning episodes include "A Tiger Called Broken Tail", overall winner at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival in 2011 and Missoula's International Wildlife Film Festival (IWFF) in 2012, "Madagascar, Lemurs and Spies", a three time winner at IWFF in 2012, "My Life As A Turkey", recipient of the Golden Panda at the Wildscreen Festival in 2012 and "Kangaroo Dundee", a prize winner at Jackson Hole and IWFF in 2013.