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| Formation | 22 November 1928 |
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| Type | International exhibitions |
| Headquarters | Paris, France |
Membership | 183 members |
| Alain Berger | |
| Dimitri S. Kerkentzes | |
| Website | www |
The Bureau international des expositions (BIE; English: International Bureau of Expositions) is an intergovernmental organization created to supervise international exhibitions (also known as expos, global expos or world expos) falling under the jurisdiction of the Convention Relating to International Exhibitions.
The BIE was established by the Convention Relating to International Exhibitions, signed in Paris on 22 November 1928, with the following goals:
Today, 170 member countries have adhered to the BIE Convention.
The BIE regulates two types of expositions: Registered Exhibitions (commonly called World Expos) and Recognized Exhibitions (commonly called Specialized Expositions). Horticultural Exhibitions with an A1 grade, regulated by the International Association of Horticultural Producers, are recognized since 1960.
The Bureau International des Expositions also recognises the Milan Triennial Exhibition of Decorative Arts and Modern Architecture, on grounds of historical precedence, provided that it retains its original features.
Since the creation of the BIE in 1928, different protocols have governed Expo categories, which are generally split between World Expos and Specialised Expos. The rules for each category define the duration, the frequency, the size, and the construction attributes of each Expo. [1]
Under the original protocol of the 1928 Paris Convention, the BIE recognised two types of Expos:
The Protocol of 30 November 1972 revised the original Convention, entering into force in 1980. Under these new rules, two types of Expos were recognised:
A new amendment was adopted in 1988 and ratified in 1996, further distinguishing the two types of Expos:
Expo 2008 in Zaragoza was the first Specialised Expo to be organised under these new rules, which continue to be in force to this day.
The BIE may also grant recognition to A1 Horticultural Exhibitions approved by the International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH) since 1960, and to the Triennale di Milano since 1933.
According to the 1988 Amendment of the Convention on International Exhibitions, World Expos (formally known as International Registered Exhibitions) may occur every five years, and may last up to six months. [2] Countries, international organizations, civil societies, and corporations are allowed to participate in World Expos. The themes of World Expos address a universal challenge facing humanity, and international participants may design and build their own pavilions. Participants may also opt to customise a pavilion provided by the Organiser or to participate within a joint pavilion, which has lower participation costs. Examples of themes of recent World Expos include "Man and His World" for Expo '67 in Montreal, and "Age of Discoveries" for Seville Expo '92, and examples of joint pavilion buildings for a Registered Exposition is the Plaza of America at Seville's Expo '92, which was constructed by the Seville Expo Authority to maximize participation at the World Expo by South American nations. The Plaza of Africa at Seville was constructed for the same purpose.
World Expos are also massive in scale, sometimes 300 or 400 hectares in size (Montreal's Expo 67 was 410 hectares, Osaka's Expo 70 was 330 hectares, Seville's Expo '92 was 215 hectares and Shanghai's Expo 2010, 528 hectares). Pavilions participating at a World Expo can also be large, sometimes 5,000 to 10,000 square metres in size, mini city blocks in themselves and sometimes more than several stories in height. (The Australia Pavilion for Shanghai 2010 was 5,000 square metres, the British Pavilion sat on a 6,000 square metres lot, as did the Canadian Pavilion. The flagship Chinese National Pavilion had 20,000 square metres of exhibition space.)
World Expos have been known to average 200,000 persons per day of visitors and some 50 to 70 million visitors during their six-month duration. Montreal's Expo 67 attracted 54 million visitors, Osaka's Expo '70, 64 million visitors, the Seville Expo '92, 41 million visitors and Shanghai's Expo 2010 attracted 70 million visitors.
As a result, transport and other infrastructure at a Registered Exposition is an important concern (Seville's World Expo of 1992 boasted cable car, monorail, boat, and bus) and the overall cost for hosting and being represented at a World Expos is quite high, compared to the smaller-scale Specialised Expos.
Specialised Expos (formally known as International Recognised Exhibitions) may occur between World Expos and may have a duration of between three weeks and three months. Countries, international organizations, civil societies, and corporations are allowed to participate but the theme of the Expo must address a precise challenge, e.g. Future Energy (Expo 2017 Astana), or Living Oceans and the Coast (Expo 2012 Yeosu). The pavilions are built by the Organiser and made available to participants who may customise them. The largest pavilion may be no larger than 1,000 square meters, and the Expo site must not exceed an area of twenty-five hectares. For this reason Specialised Expos are cheaper to run than World Expos.
There are blurred lines between Specialized and World Expositions prior to the 1996 amendment of the BIE's constitution. Some Specialized Expos, such as Expo 86 in Vancouver, Expo '85 in Tsukuba, or Hemisfair '68, ran for six months and pulled in greater attendance numbers than their 'World Expo' relatives. Many of these specialized expos also had individual pavilions for their participants or covered a greater exhibition site than other World Expos of the era. According to the new amendment, there were only two World Expos between 1970 and 1992 with over 12 Specialized Expos in that same period. Most of these indeed are smaller exhibitions on a focused theme, but some, such as Expo 86 and Expo 88, were intended as full-fledged World Expos. Others, such as Expo 74, the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, or Expo '85, were specialized exhibitions that were promoted as full World Expos.
183 countries are member states of the BIE: [3]
Albania 
Algeria 
Andorra 
Angola 
Antigua and Barbuda 
Argentina 
Armenia 
Austria 
Azerbaijan 
Bahamas 
Bahrain 
Bangladesh 
Barbados 
Belarus 
Belgium 
Belize 
Benin 
Bosnia and Herzegovina 
Brazil 
Bulgaria 
Burkina Faso 
Burundi 
Cambodia 
Cameroon [4] 
Central African Republic 
Chad [5] 
Chile 
China 
Colombia 
Comoros 
Republic of the Congo 
Democratic Republic of the Congo 
Costa Rica 
Croatia 
Cuba 
Cyprus 
Czech Republic 
Denmark 
Djibouti 
Dominica 
Dominican Republic 
Ecuador 
Egypt 
El Salvador 
Equatorial Guinea 
Eritrea 
Estonia 
Fiji 
Finland 
France 
Gabon 
Gambia 
Georgia 
Germany 
Ghana 
Greece 
Grenada 
Guatemala 
Guinea 
Guinea-Bissau 
Guyana 
Haiti 
Honduras 
Hungary 
Iceland 
Indonesia 
Iran 
Israel 
Italy 
Ivory Coast 
Japan 
Jordan 
Kazakhstan 
Kenya 
Kosovo [6] 
Kiribati 
North Korea 
South Korea 
Kuwait 
Kyrgyzstan 
Laos 
Lebanon 
Lesotho 
Liberia 
Libya 
Lithuania 
Madagascar 
Malawi 
Malaysia 
Maldives 
Mali 
Malta 
Marshall Islands 
Mauritania 
Mauritius 
Mexico 
Monaco 
Mongolia 
Montenegro [7] 
Morocco 
Mozambique [5] 
Namibia 
Nauru 
Nepal 
Netherlands 
New Zealand [5] 
Nicaragua 
Niger 
Nigeria 
Norway 
Oman 
Pakistan 
Palau 
Panama 
Paraguay 
Peru 
Philippines 
Poland 
Portugal 
Qatar 
Romania 
Russia 
Rwanda 
San Marino 
Saint Kitts and Nevis 
Saint Lucia 
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 
Samoa 
Saudi Arabia 
Senegal 
Serbia 
Seychelles 
Sierra Leone 
Slovakia 
Slovenia 
Solomon Islands 
South Africa 
Spain 
Somalia [5] 
Sri Lanka 
Sudan 
South Sudan [8] 
Suriname 
Eswatini 
Sweden 
Switzerland 
Syria 
Tajikistan 
Tanzania 
Thailand 
Timor-Leste 
Togo 
Tonga 
Tunisia 
Turkey 
Turkmenistan [5] 
Tuvalu 
Uganda 
Ukraine 
United Arab Emirates 
United Kingdom 
United States [9] 
Uruguay 
Uzbekistan 
Vanuatu 
Venezuela 
Vietnam 
Yemen 
Zambia 
Zimbabwe [10] Australia was a signatory to the treaty [11] and won the right to hold the 1988 World Exposition. In 2015 the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry requested that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia) reconsider membership, as the cost was too high and "difficult to demonstrate an appropriate return on investment", and that membership be withdrawn temporarily in 2015. [12] Australia is no longer listed as a member of BIE. [3]
On October 16, 2012, the Conservative government ended Canada's membership of the BIE when the federal government cancelled its $25,000 per year membership fee as part of "reviewing all spending across government with the aim of reducing the deficit and returning to balanced budgets." [13]
Five International Exhibitions have been sanctioned by the BIE in the United States since World War II: one in the World Expo category—the Century 21 Exposition in Seattle (1962)—and four in the Specialized Expo category—HemisFair '68 in San Antonio; Expo '74 in Spokane, Washington; the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee; and the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition in New Orleans. [14] The 1964-65 New York World's Fair was held without receiving approval from the BIE. [15]
The United States' membership in the BIE was revoked in June 2001 [16] due to non-allocation of funds by the U.S. Congress for two years. The withdrawal of the United States from the BIE had a limited impact on the BIE and on the participation of the United States in International Exhibitions: the country hosted pavilions at World Expo 2005 in Aichi Prefecture, Japan; World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, China; Specialised Expo 2012 in Yeosu, South Korea; and World Expo 2015 in Milan, Italy. However, the withdrawal "had strong, adverse consequences for states and localities that wish to host an exposition on U.S. soil. Organizers in at least four states have prepared bids, or are exploring the possibility of preparing bids to host a BIE-affiliated expo." In each case, the bid project was unsuccessful, with non-membership of the BIE hurting the chances of a U.S. bid moving forward. [16]
The U.S. rejoined the organization on 10 May 2017 [17] after President Trump signed the "U.S. Wants to Compete for a World Expo Act" (HR534) into law (Pub.L. 115-32) [18] as Minnesota was looking to host a Specialized Expo in 2023.
Fictional characters serving as mascots have been used since 1984, starting with Seymore D. Fair as the official mascot of the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition (the name being a pun on "see more of the fair", stemming from the local New Orleans dialect). Seymore D. Fair was followed by many more character mascots over the years, including Curro in Seville Expo '92; Twipsy at Expo 2000 in Hanover; and Haibao at Expo 2010 in Shanghai. The names and designs of Expo mascots are often intended to reflect the exposition's host city in some way.
The anthem of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) is the starting part of the 4th Movement of Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 in E Minor "From the New World".[ citation needed ]
A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large global exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specific site for a period of time, typically between three and six months.
World Expo 88, also known as Expo 88, was a specialised Expo held in Brisbane, the state capital of Queensland, Australia, during a six-month period between Saturday, 30 April 1988 and Sunday, 30 October 1988, inclusive. The theme of the Expo was "Leisure in the Age of Technology", and the mascot for the Expo was an Australian platypus named Expo Oz.
Taejon Expo '93 was a three-month international exposition held between Saturday, August 7, 1993 and Sunday, November 7, 1993 in the central South Korean city of Daejeon.
Expo 2005 was a world expo held for 185 days between Friday, March 25 and Sunday, September 25, 2005, in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, east of the city of Nagoya. Japan has also hosted Expo '70 Osaka, Expo '75 Okinawa, Expo '85 Tsukuba, and Expo '90 Osaka and will host Expo 2025 Osaka . The site of the expo would become the Expo 2005 Aichi Commemorative Park after it ended and is now the home of Ghibli Park.
Expo 2010, officially the Expo 2010 Shanghai China, was held on both banks of the Huangpu River in Shanghai, China, from 1 May to 31 October 2010. It was a major World Expo registered by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), in the tradition of international fairs and expositions, the first since 2005. The theme of the exposition was "Better City – Better Life" and signifies Shanghai's new status in the 21st century as the "next great world city". The Expo emblem features the Chinese character 世 modified to represent three people together with the 2010 date. It had the largest number of countries participating and was the most expensive Expo in the history of the world's fairs. The Shanghai World Expo was also the largest World's Fair site ever at 5.28 square km.
Expo '98 was an official specialised World's Fair held in Lisbon, Portugal from Friday, 22 May to Wednesday, 30 September 1998. The theme of the fair was "The Oceans, a Heritage for the Future", chosen in part to commemorate 500 years of Portuguese discoveries. The Expo received over 10 million visitors in 132 days, while 143 countries and many organizations were represented.
The 1984 Louisiana World Exposition was a World's Fair held in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. It was held 100 years after the city's earlier World's Fair, the World Cotton Centennial in 1884. It opened on Saturday, May 12, 1984, and ended on Sunday, November 11, 1984. Its theme was "The World of Rivers—Fresh Waters as a Source of Life".
The Seville Expo '92 was a universal exposition that took place from Monday, April 20 to Monday, October 12, 1992, on La Isla de La Cartuja, Seville, Spain. The theme for the expo was "The Age of Discovery", celebrating the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus reaching the Americas after launching from Seville's port, and over 100 countries were represented. The total amount of land used for the expo was 215 hectares and the total number of visitors was 41,814,571. The exposition ran at the same time as the smaller and shorter-duration Genoa Expo '92, a Specialized Exhibition, held in memory of Christopher Columbus, born in Genoa.
The Royal Flora Ratchaphruek was an international horticultural exposition held 1 November, 2006 to 31 January, 2007 at Queen Sirikit Botanic Garden in the Thai city Chiang Mai of Chiang Mai Province that drew 3,781,624 visitors. Recognised by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), it was one of the grand celebrations hosted by the Royal Thai Government in honor of King Bhumibol, the world's longest reigning monarch.
Expo '85, officially called the International Exhibition, Tsukuba Japan 1985, was a world's fair held in Tsukuba Science City, Ibaraki, Japan between Sunday, March 17 and Monday, September 16, 1985. The main venue was located in town of Yatabe, and the sub venue was in village of Sakura. The theme of the fair was "Dwellings and surroundings – Science and Technology for Man at Home". Attendance was over 20 million and 48 countries participated, along with several companies.
The 1999 World Horticultural Exposition was an A1 category international horticultural exposition recognised by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE). Organised under the auspices of the International Association of Horticultural Producers, the event was held in Kunming, Yunnan, China. The theme of the exposition was "Man and Nature, marching into the 21st century."
Expo '90 or The International Garden and Greenery Exposition, organized as a part of the International Expositions Convention, was the first large-scale international gardening exposition in Asia and focused on the theme of the "Harmonious Coexistence of Nature and Mankind." The exposition was held in Tsurumi Ryokuchi, Osaka for 183 days, from Sunday, April 1 to Sunday, September 30, 1990. The convention included participation from 83 countries and 55 international organizations and attracted over 23,126,934 visitors.
Expo 2016 was an international horticultural exposition held in Antalya, Turkey. Under the aegis of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) Expo 2016 Antalya was the first International Horticultural Exhibition to be held in Turkey.
The Brussels International Exposition of 1910 was a world's fair held in Brussels, Belgium, from 23 April to 1 November 1910. This was just thirteen years after Brussels' previous world's fair. It received 13 million visitors, covered 88 hectares and lost 100,000 Belgian francs.
Expo 61 was the international labour exhibition held in 1961 in the Italian City of Turin. It was the 15th specialized exposition recognized by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE). Italy used the opportunity to expand the event with an exposition celebrating the centennial of Italian unity. The result is that the exhibition is widely remembered as Italia '61.
Expo 1985 Plovdiv was an international exposition that took place from November 4–30, 1985 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The exhibition had the theme "The Achievements of Young Inventors". The specialized exhibition was the 24th held by the Bureau International des Expositions and the second held in Plovdiv. Another specialized exposition, Expo '85 in Tsukuba, Japan occurred the same year.
Expo 2023 would have been a specialized exhibition that was scheduled to be held in 2023 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) awarded Buenos Aires as the host on November 15, 2017. This was to have been the first time that a BIE Expo was held in Argentina, and the first in the country since BIE's creation. In October 2020, Argentina announced that due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing financial crisis, the Expo would not be held as planned in 2023.
The Taichung World Flora Exposition is an AIPH horticultural exposition held between 3 November 2018 and 24 April 2019 in Houli District, Taiwan. There were 33 participating countries.
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