The National Geographic Magazine Vol. 01

The first issue of the National Geographic Magazine was published on September 22, 1888, nine months after the Society was founded. It was initially a scholarly journal sent to 165 charter members and currently it reaches the hands of 40 million people each month. Starting with its January 1905 publication of several full-page pictures of Tibet in 1900–01, the magazine changed from being a text-oriented publication closer to a scientific journal to featuring extensive pictorial content, and became well known for this style. The June 1985 cover portrait of the presumed to be 12-year-old Afghan girl Sharbat Gula, shot by photographer Steve McCurry, became one of the magazine's most recognizable images.

National Geographic Kids, the children's version of the magazine, was launched in 1975 under the name National Geographic World.

In the late 1990s, the magazine began publishing The Complete National Geographic, a digital collection of every past issue of the magazine. It was then sued over copyright of the magazine as a collective work in Greenberg v. National Geographic and other cases, and temporarily withdrew the availability of the compilation. The magazine would prevail in the dispute, and in July 2009, resumed republishing containing all past issues through December 2008. The collection was later updated to make more recent issues available, and the archive and digital edition of the magazine are available online to the magazine's subscribers.

In September 2015, the National Geographic Society moved the magazine to a new partnership, National Geographic Partners, in which 21st Century Fox held a 73% controlling interest.

In December 2017, Disney acquired 21st Century Fox, including the latter's interest in National Geographic Partners. NG Media publishing unit was operationally transferred into Disney Publishing Worldwide.