It comprises six series spread across 15 discs, all of them written and presented by David Attenborough, and together forming a comprehensive introduction to the major groups of terrestrial lifeforms.
The series were filmed between 1987 and 2008, but are presented in the order in which the groups evolved, beginning with invertebrates and culminating with human beings, to tell the continuous story of the development of life on land.
With a total running time exceeding 34 hours, it represents an in-depth visual survey of the living world as it exists today, at the beginning of the 21st century.
Each series has been remastered to include an on-screen interactive encyclopaedia, which is indexed to provide easy reference to every species filmed, and to behavioural categories such as tool use, symbiosis and migration.
Attenborough tells the story of how one species of mammal, Homo sapiens spread from Africa to the Mediterranean and began to change its relationship with the rest of the natural world.