This paper firstly reviews the recent development in power system protection and control, with special attention paid to the wide-area and integrated protection, in order to look into future development of integration of protection and control for smart grids. This paper mainly reports on the development of integrated wide area protection and control for power systems. The concept of integrated wide area protection and control is introduced, in which a hierarchical protection and control system provides the protection and control of wide area or regional power substations/ plants and their associated power network. The system is mainly divided into three levels, the local, the substation/plant and the wide area/regional protection and control. The integrated functions at each level are described in details with an aim to develop an optimal coordination mechanism between the levels. One of the core elements in the system is the synchronised wide area communication network between the substations and the protection and control system, in which latest communication technology is employed. Another important player in the system is the wide area synchronized protection and control information platform, which not only enables the fusion three line of defence for power system protection and control, but also provides a perfect tool for the application of cloud computing to substations and power networks.