The very first World Expo, at the time called World’s Fair, took place in 1851 in London, UK, and covered an area of 10 hectares with 25 countries participating in it. Since then the area of the exhibition varied from tens of hectares in Europe to 500 hectares in the US, but the number of participating nations rarely exceeded one hundred. Over the last 20 years, four big Expos have been held, the Expo in Dubai being the fifth one. Interestingly, in Hannover, Germany, in 2000, in Nakaguta, Japan, in 2005, and in Milan, Italy, in 2015, the area of the exhibition grounds was 160, 173, and 110 hectares respectively, and the number of participating nations was 155, 121, and 145, which provides some average figures for generalized main fairs of the 21st century – these figures are large, but not final. Against this background, the World Expo in Shanghai purposefully broke all the records, its area being 528 hectares, its number of visitors 73 million people, the number of nations participating 192 – considering the fact that the number of independent nations in the world oscillated between 195 and 197. Meaning – almost the whole planet was involved. 

The current World Expo 2020 in Dubai, the first one held in an Arabian country, set a goal if not to surpass then to be on a level with the Shanghai expo in terms of all the key figures, which was almost achieved: the number of nations participating is 192 – not the biggest figure ever but precisely as many as was involved in the Shanghai exhibition. The area is slightly smaller but still big enough – 438 hectares. Considering the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, because of which the exhibition had to be postponed for a year (keeping the “key” number of 2020 in its name), such figures can also be considered a kind of record.

сайт экспо 2020" title="Master plan for the development of District 2020 after the completion of the Expo with the distribution of functions. When compared with the plan, it can be seen that office buildings and multilevel parking lots appear between the “petals” of th Copyright: Скрин-шот, источник – сайт экспо 2020">

сайт экспо 2020" title="The plan of the Expo 2020 exhibition. The 3 main petals proposed in the HOK master plan, the spaces between them, and the central square under the dome are filled in. The exhibition center at the entrance is only half built, maybe even a third. The buildi Copyright: Скрин-шот, источник – сайт экспо 2020">