Osaka will host 2025 World Expo

The Japanese city of Osaka has been selected to host the World Expo in 2025, an event expected to draw millions of visitors and showcase the local economy and culture. The theme for the 2025 World Expo is finding solutions to challenges facing humanity.

Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said in a statement that the country will make an utmost effort to "achieve a magnificent expo in Osaka that would give dreams and surprises to everyone in the world." Hosting a world expo in Japan would be "a golden opportunity to promote fascinating charms of Japan to the rest of the world," Abe said.

World Expos, which are held every five years, can last up to six months and cost millions of dollars to host, but can help put a city on the global map by bringing in international visitors and attention.

Leaders in Osaka, Japan's third-largest city and the largest in western Japan, are hoping the expo will revitalize a city that has lost much of its luster to Tokyo, the nation's political and economic capital.