With the massive integration of distributed generators (DGs) and the ever-increasing demand on power supply quality and system efficiency, the protection and control of the distribution network is facing new challenges. The traditional centralized and local measurement based protection and control methods have either slow responses or poor performance due to limited information inputs. A wide area measuring and control system (WAMCS) able to support all kinds of centralized, local and distributed intelligence (DI) control methods and provide a unified and open platform for monitoring, protection and control applications of the smart distribution grid is proposed. DI based applications in WAMCS, such as DGs interconnection control, wide area protection, fast fault isolation and the service restoration and self-healing solutions for earth faults in a non-effectively earthed network, are presented. With further progress and improvement of the technologies, the WAMCS and its applications will provide a solid foundation for the development of smart distribution grids.