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World Design Capital

City promotion project

The World Design Capital (WDC) programme, designated every two years by the World Design Organization (WDO), recognizes cities for their effective use of design to drive economic, social, cultural, and environmental development. Through a year-long programme of events, the designated city showcases best practices in sustainable design-led urban policy and innovation that improves quality of life.

01World Design Capitals by year

Year Location Source
2008 Turin, Italy
2010 Seoul, South Korea
2012 Helsinki, Finland
2014 Cape Town, South Africa
2016 Taipei, Taiwan
2018 Mexico City, Mexico
2020 Métropole Européenne de Lille, France
2022 Valencia, Spain
2024 San Diego, United States*
Tijuana, Mexico*
2026 Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Germany
2028 Busan, South Korea
*transborder collaboration
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Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article World Design Capital, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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