With very national pavilion trying to outdo the next in the race to show who has the Best City, Best Life, the Theme Pavilion stomps on all of them with its big green eco-boot. It includes five sub-pavilions - Urban Dwellers, Urban Beings, Urban Planets, Urban Footprints and Urban Dreams - which elaborate at length on the Expo theme. Read more about each of them here.

Boasting the world's largest rooftop with a solar energy system, the Pavilion can generate 2.8 million kilowatt-hours per year - enough electricity for 2,500 Shanghai families for a year. The electricity generated should reduce carbon dioxide discharges by 2,800 tons.

As if that weren't enough, the Pavilion also breaks another (similarly obscure) record: its 25,000-square-meter west exhibition hall has a north-south span of 188 meters - the biggest "non-column space" (we think they mean unsupported by columns) in the world.

The Theme Pavilion is also one of only five structures that will remain in situ after the Expo (the others are the China Pavilion, the Culture Center, the Expo Center and the Expo Boulevard). 

More useful information:

Shanghai Expo tickets
Shanghai Expo transportation