Poster of chinese pavillion at EXPO in Shanghai

In the year of 2010 the Chinese city Shanghai is catching attention from all over the World.

Under the theme Better City, Better Life Shanghai hosts the World Exhibition 2010. The overall focus of many of the pavilions will be sustainable city development. Shanghai is among the growing number of megacities in the World and an important issue will be how a city can host millions of citizens without being a threat to its surroundings, causing climate changes a.o.

Model of the German EXPO pavilion in Shanghai

The EXPO in Shanghai is expected to be the most spectacular and largest EXPO ever. An average of 400.000 people are expected to visit the EXPO everyday - a total of 70 million people from the 1st of May - 31st of October 2010. Already before Christmas 2009 the organizer had sold 12 million tickets for the EXPO.

The National pavilion for Sweden

Almost all countries in the World participate at the EXPO. A total of 192 countries have announced to participate with a national pavilion.

Many of the national pavilions are large construction with the big "Forbidden City Red" Chinese pavilion of 47.000 m² as the largest of all the national pavillions. It is placed in on the Pudong side of the Expo area in Zone A with other Asian national pavilons.

The inside of the EXPO pavilion from Denmark with The Little Mermaid from Copenhagen in the center of a pool.

Apart from these also 50 international organizations participate with separate pavilions and exhibitions.

The Nanpu Bridge crossing the Huangpu River that seperates the two parts of EXPO in Pudong and Puxi.

Since the focus of the EXPO is better city the organizers have made a special area for different cities of the World chosen to show Urban Best Practices at the UBPA - Urban Best Practices Area. Among the chosen cities are Saint Petersburg (Russia), London (UK), Malmö (Sweden), Suzhou (China) and Odense (Denmark).

Of the 184 opening days 19 are Peak Days with especially many visitors. The peak days are Chinese holydays and the last days of the EXPO. These days demands special Peak Day Tickets. The Peak Days are: 1st - 3rd of May (Opening and Labour Day), 1st - 7th of October (National Day Holyday and the last days of the Exhibition 25th - 31st of October. Read more.

During the EXPO period almost every day is announced to be a National Pavilion Day for one of the participating nations. Other days are also Honor Days for international organizations participating the EXPO. At these days special arrangements will be made in connection to the specific pavilion.

The World Exhibition is placed is placed on both sides of the Huangpu River between the Nanpu Bridge and Lupu Bridge. The total area of the exhibition is 5,28 km² of which the largest part (3,93 km²) is placed in the Pudong Area while and the rest in the Puxi area (1,36 km²).

See also the Wikipedia description of EXPO and short description at Worldexpo.dk

The Chinese pavillon under construction