When the World was Wide is a 1978 American documentary film that presents pioneering travelogue footage of exotic and far-flung locales taken between 1905 and 1927.

It samples archival footage reaching back to "the last days of the Manchu Dynasty" in China and includes the first footage taken in Japan (1909) and Tibet (1919) and the first ever of a Dalai Lama.

The film is narrated by the actor Lee Richardson and draws upon material in the Albert Kahn Archives in France.

It was adapted from material in an earlier French film series, Donner à voir (1966).

[1] Opening title card: "An homage to the anonymous pioneer cameraman who filmed these images recently unearthed in a French archive."