Canton Fair Complex in Guangzhou remains the largest exhibition facility in Asia Pacific.
Asia Pacific has overtaken Europe in the number of the world’s largest exhibition venues, according to the 2026 edition of the World Map of Exhibition Venues released by UFI, the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, and produced by jwc.
The census counted 41 Asia-Pacific venues with at least 100,000sqm of gross indoor exhibition space, compared with 38 in Europe. The two regions were level in the previous edition.
Asia Pacific also expanded its lead in overall capacity. It held 38.3% of global indoor exhibition space, or 17.3 million sqm, 2.5 percentage points ahead of Europe at 35.8%. North America accounted for 16.7%.
The region’s venues averaged 39,238sqm, compared with 29,802sqm in Europe.
China alone represented 30.7% of global capacity, ahead of the US at 13.9% and Germany at 7.0%.
The Canton Fair Complex in Guangzhou remained the world’s largest exhibition venue, with 504,000sqm of indoor space. Across the global market, 84 venues, or 5% of the total, offered at least 100,000sqm.
Globally, the study identified 1,565 venues of at least 5,000sqm, with combined capacity of 45.2 million sqm as of 31 December 2025. That was an increase of 35 venues and about 900,000sqm from the previous edition.
Smaller facilities continued to dominate the market: 62% of venues had less than 20,000 sqm, while 33% offered between 20,000 and 99,999sqm.
Seven countries each had more than 1 million sqm of exhibition space. China, the United States, Germany, Italy and France together accounted for almost 63% of global capacity.
The report profiles all five regions and 22 markets with more than 300,000sqm of indoor exhibition space. Asia Pacific markets in that group include China, India, Japan and South Korea.