The 23-year-old, who started 15 seconds ahead after winning Saturday's sprint, came home 5.2 seconds ahead of Sweden’s Carl Johan Bergman with Anton Shipulin of Russia picking up bronze.
Fourcade retained the title that he won in Khanty-Mansiysk last year after powering away from sprint bronze medallist Bergman on the final 2.5km lap.
The Swede had started 18 seconds behind but was in close proximity to Fourcade after a clean opening shoot and they were joined by Austrian Daniel Mesotitsch after he hit his first 10 targets.
After missing once in each of his prone shoots, Fourcade opened up a commanding lead on the penultimate lap after a clean third visit.
But two misses in the standing position meant he and Bergman, who hit 18 of 20, were head-to-head on the last lap.
But the man from the Pyrenees had too much power and cruised home with the fast-finishing Shipulin, only 13th on Saturday, overcoming a seven second deficit on the final lap to take bronze away from Mesotitsch.
Fourcade said: "It was a great race to watch, there were a few too many errors but that made the race quite exciting! I’m very satisfied with my skiing performance, a little bit less with the shooting.
"I’ll definitely have to work on that for the individual. But tomorrow we’ll have a day off and I’ll profit from that and really savour what has happened to me."
Norway's Emil Hegle Svendsen was unable to pick up his third medal of the Championship. The sprint silver medallist missed twice on his final visit to the range and had to settle for fifth, 45.4 seconds behind the winner, and just ahead of Fourcade's brother Simon and defending World Cup champion Tarjei Boe.
Ole Einar Bjoerndalen was never in contention to add to his 37 World Championship medals with the Norwegian legend finishing 27th, over two minutes behind, after only hitting 14 shots.
