“Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai” was held on Yumeshima, an artificial island on the waterfront of Osaka, Japan, from April 13 to October 13, 2025. Organized by the Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition, it was a registered Expo (International Registered Exhibition) under the International Exhibitions Bureau (Bureau International des Expositions, BIE) and ran for 184 days. The Expo recorded more than 29 million visits in total, about 25.6 million of them by general visitors once visits made with accreditation passes are set aside.

Japan was elected host on November 23, 2018, at the 164th General Assembly of the BIE in Paris, defeating bids from Ekaterinburg, Russia, and Baku, Azerbaijan. Osaka led the first round with 85 votes to 48 for Russia and 23 for Azerbaijan, then won the second round 92 to 61. The bid had proposed dates of May 3 to November 3, 2025; the Expo ultimately opened in April. It was Osaka’s second Expo, following Expo 1970 Osaka, a general exhibition of the first category that drew 64,218,770 visitors.

The theme, “Designing Future Society for Our Lives,” asked how people want to live and how each person can reach their full potential. It was divided into three subthemes: Saving Lives, covering public health, disaster readiness and coexistence with nature; Empowering Lives, covering remote education, healthy longevity and human potential through AI and robotics; and Connecting Lives, covering partnership, co-creation, communications and data-driven societies. The organizers framed the whole event as a “People’s Living Lab,” a concept that guided practical projects on and off the site, both before and during the Expo.

The Expo had 165 Official Participants: 158 countries and territories and seven international organizations, the broadest international representation at any Expo held in Japan. Eight Theme Weeks brought together 429 programs. At the core of the theme were eight Signature Pavilions, each led by a producer: Better Co-Being (Hiroaki Miyata), Future of Life (Hiroshi Ishiguro), Playground of Life: Jellyfish Pavilion (Sachiko Nakajima), null2 (Yoichi Ochiai), Dynamic Equilibrium of Life (Shin-Ichi Fukuoka), Live Earth Journey (Shoji Kawamori), Earth Mart (Kundo Koyama) and Dialogue Theater -sign of life- (Naomi Kawase).

The 155-hectare site placed its pavilions in a central zone, with water to the south and greenery to the west. Its defining structure was the Grand Ring, designed by Sou Fujimoto Architects, whose founder also served as the Expo’s site design producer. The timber ring, about 2 kilometers around, used some 27,000 cubic meters of wood and joinery inspired by traditional Japanese nuki joints, and carried a 12-meter-high Ring Skywalk. Guinness World Records recognized it as the world’s largest wooden architectural structure, and the BIE described it as the Expo’s main symbol of diversity and connection.

Attendance began slowly, with daily visits below 100,000 in the opening weeks, and grew as positive reviews spread on social media; from September 12 onward, more than 200,000 people came each day, and 207,889 visited on the closing day. The official mascot, Myaku-Myaku, was chosen from 1,898 design proposals, and its name from 33,197 suggestions. On the final day, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba presented the mascot with a letter of appreciation. The BIE-Cosmos Prize for the Expo went to ONG Mon Enfant, Ma Vie for its MoussoTech project, and BIE Secretary General Dimitri Kerkentzes praised the Expo for bringing 158 countries together at a time of global division.

After the closing, most pavilions and facilities were dismantled, but many exhibits and building components found new homes across the Kansai region, elsewhere in Japan and abroad. The Japan Association published a Legacy Map to track them. The United Kingdom pavilion’s red telephone box went to Kansai International Airport, and Portugal’s tile sculpture “A Janela” moved to INAX Museums in Tokoname, Aichi Prefecture, for permanent display.

Demolition of most of the Grand Ring began in early December 2025. Plans call for preserving a northeastern section of about 200 meters, provided inspections confirm its condition, within a public park of about 33,000 square meters to be managed by the City of Osaka. The organizer intends to clear the grounds and return the site to the city by February 2028. Osaka plans to sell about 500,000 square meters of the central Expo land for private development, and an integrated resort that includes a casino is expected to open on Yumeshima around autumn 2030.

Expo 2025 Osaka extended Japan’s long engagement with Expos and, through its timber Grand Ring and its focus on life and well-being, left a clear architectural and thematic mark on the Expo tradition.