The Commonwealth of Australia has been a proud participant at nearly every World Exposition in the 20th Century post-war era, as well as several of the 21st century's first World Expositions - namely Aichi 2005 Japan, Shanghai 2010 China, and Dubai 2020 UAE. Australia is also committed to have a Pavilion at the 2025 Osaka Kansai World Exposition.

Australia's participation at these fora extend our mutual ties and obligations to the international community, as well as fostering a sense of goodwill not only with the host city/nation, but also between participating nations at the Expo itself - a mini-U.N. of sorts - a cultural Olympiad - and a stock-take of our nation unique to the Expo's site and epoch.

Prior to the foundation of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, each of the separate state colonies chose on an individual basis whether to particpate at an International Exhibition, of which we generally regard the 'Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations', held in London in 1851, as the first.

Since then World Expositions have been held in Paris, Vienna, Philadelphia, Sydney, Melbourne, Chicago, St Louis, San Francisco, New York, Brussells, Seattle, Osaka, Vancouver, Brisbane, Seville, Taejon and Hanover, as a few, and Australia, either as represented by her colonial state members - pre-1901, or as the Commonwealth of Australia - post-1901,  has mostly been there - as a pre-eminent and loyal British Empire subject, as well as being a fledgling nation of the Asia-Pacific. 

This page will look at some of the representations by the Australian continent from the Crystal Palace London 1851, to the 1867 Philadelphia Exhibition, the 1889 Paris Universelle Exposition, the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exhibition, the 1904 St Louis Purchase Exposition, the 1915 San Francisco Panama-Pacific International Exposition, and the later post-World War II Universal Expositions of Brusells '58, Montréal expo '67, Osaka '70, Seville '92, the international fin de siècle and new millennium expositions of Hannover 2000 Germany and Aichi World Expo 2005 Japan, and the major Australian World Expositions of Sydney 1879, Melbourne 1880 & 1888, and Brisbane's World Expo '88 - which of course receives its comprehensive coverage through this website.