The 39th World Artistic Gymnastics Championships were held in Aarhus, Denmark, from October 13 to October 21, 2006.

The International Gymnastics Federation, which celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2006, introduced a new Code of Points at the World Championships, removing the "perfect 10" in favor of an open-ended code with separate scores for the difficulty and execution of a routine.

Vanessa Ferrari won the first female gold medal for Italy in the individual all-around.