The 1999 IIHF World Women's Championships was held between March 8-March 14, 1999 in the city of Espoo in Finland. Team Canada won their 5th consecutive gold medal at the World Championships defeating the United States in a repeat of the previous four finals. Canada skated to a solid 3-1 victory in the final to take the gold with a solid performance that saw them winning all five games.
Finland picked up their fifth consecutive bronze medal, with a win over Sweden who had their strongest performance since 1992.
The 1999 tournament created the format that has remained to the present, as the World Championships was greatly expanded to incorporate the European Championships and the Pacific Qualification Tournaments. There were a series of Qualification Tournaments Held to assign teams places in this first year, with the standard Promotion and Relegation model following after that. The top five nations from the Nagano Olympics were joined by three qualifiers.[1]
Russia - Won playoff against Norway for final spot
World Championship Group A[]
The eight participating teams were divided up into two seeded groups as below. The teams played each other once in a single round robin format. The top two teams from the group proceeded to the Final Round, while the remaining teams played in the Consolation Round.
In addition to the main World Championships, this year saw the first running of World Championship Group B, which replaced the European Championships. Eight further teams played in this competition, hosted by France in the town of Colmar. Japan won the tournament defeating Norway in the final 7-1 to win the competition and to ensure their Promotion to the main World Championship in 2000.
Finland
Canada (5 titles)
Jenny Schmidgall 12 points
Germany - Final Qualification group A winner
United States
Sweden
China
Russia
Germany
Switzerland
Japan won the tournament defeating 
Norway in the final 7-1 to win the competition and to ensure their Promotion to the main World Championship in 2000.