The World Health Organization (WHO) has considered environmental noise (also called community noise) an important problem since the 1970s. The deliberations of a WHO Task Group on Environmental Health Criteria for Noise were published in the Environmental Health Criteria Series of the International Program for Chemical Safety, Building upon the recommendations of this early publication , the WHO Regional Office for Europe, in its Environmental Health Series, published a report on the assessment of noise impact on the urban environment. The WHO Regional Center for Environmental Health Activities (CEHA) in Amman, Jordan, organized an Informal Consultation on Noise Pollution in 1991, with selected presentations published in 1995. In 1992, a WHO Task Force meeting greatly expanded largely the noise document of 1980. A corresponding report by the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, on behalf of WHO, recommended guidelines for levels of community noise in different environments. In a WHO Expert Task Force meeting in 1999, this report was revised, updated and greatly expanded to include, in addition to guidelines and guideline values, the topics of environmental noise assessment and management. The deliberations of this meeting constitute the new WHO Guidelines for Community Noise. This paper summarizes these WHO Guidelines for Community Noise.