# So when's the next World's Fair? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 29, 2001, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whens-the-next-worlds-fair/66913 "2001-05-29T18:23:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2001, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whens-the-next-worlds-fair/66913/1 "2001-05-29T18:23:20Z")
**Who organizes these things?** Is there an oversight committee, like the Olympics? Are they organized by the federal government and supported by private industry and foreign governments, or what? Is there U.N. involvement? **When and where will the next one be?** The last one, spoofed on an episode of _The Simpsons,_ was in 1982 in Knoxville, Tenn. **Why are they held so far apart?** The dates I have for World’s Fairs start in 1851, 1893, 1904, 1933, 1939, 1964, 1967, 1974 and 1982. **If they’re WORLD fairs, why are they overwhelmingly in America?** The only World’s Fair I’ve found outside the U.S. was in Montreal in 1967. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2001, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whens-the-next-worlds-fair/66913/2 "2001-05-30T02:20:19Z")
As Americans, the ones we are likely to hear about are in North America, but those aren’t the only ones there have been. The last five have been outside North America: Hannover, 2000 Lisbon, 1998 Taejon, South Korea, 1993 Seville, 1992 Brisbane 1988 Seville is the only one of those I remember hearing about. The last one in North America was Vancouver, in 1986. The last in the U.S. was New Orleans, 1984. World’s Fairs are usually sponsored by the Bureau of International Expositions in Paris. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2001, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whens-the-next-worlds-fair/66913/3 "2001-05-30T06:11:27Z")
The U.S. didn’t send a very big exhibit to Taejon from what I read at the time of the exhibition. I was in Lisbon a few months before its exposition and it seemed to be a big deal to people there. I suppose the decline in popularity in world fairs and expositions is due in part to the overwhelmingly rapid pace of technology today. It takes a lot to impress us now. We are not as easily awed as our grandparents were in 1939 or our parents were in 1964. (My apologies to any demographic I may have offended here.) What’s left of the Hannover exposition can be viewed and read about here [http://www.expo2000.de/index\_e.html](http://www.expo2000.de/index_e.html) ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2001, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whens-the-next-worlds-fair/66913/4 "2001-05-30T06:15:47Z")
From what I’ve been able to find, the next World’s Fair will be in 2005 in Aichi, Japan. ---
**Author:** ![Osakadave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f07891/32.png) [@Osakadave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Osakadave)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2001, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whens-the-next-worlds-fair/66913/5 "2001-05-31T06:27:54Z")
According to this site ( [http://www.worldsfairs.com/expos.html](http://www.worldsfairs.com/expos.html) ) World’s Fairs and Expos (WFs) are adninistrated by the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE). It was founded in 1928 to limit the number of WFs, to prevent an overkill of WFs. The BIE is located in Paris and has little real power. Their main contol over WFs seems to be getting various participants to restrict the number of WFs, as the US did here: [http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/22/2452b.text.html](http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/22/2452b.text.html)