The Urban Best Practices Area (in English: Urban Best Practices Areas, UBPA) was an innovative concept of Expo 2010 that was held in Shanghai between May 1 and October 31, 2010. It is a 15 ha area within the Expo site dedicated especially for exemplary cities from around the world to showcase their representative urban projects. These projects are included in one of the following four aspects:

The UBPA was located in zone E of the Expo, north of the Huangpu River, and consisted of two parts (one to the north and the other to the south) joined by a pedestrian bridge. The northern zone was in turn divided into two different sections: the pavilions of the cities that built a special construction, which is a representative copy of the original project, and the UBPA-1 and UBPA-2 enclosures, which housed the pavilions of other cities; The southern area housed the UBPA-3 and UBPA-4 campuses, with the rest of the projects.

43 cities from 20 countries around the world participated; 13 cities had their own pavilion, the other 31 had a stand within the four venues mentioned above. The following table describes the chosen cities that participated in the UBPA exhibition and the cases or projects they presented.

Spain was represented by three cities: Barcelona and Madrid with two projects each and Bilbao with a single project. Two other cities: Zaragoza (with the “Ecociudad Valdespartera” project) and Santiago de Compostela (“A historic city as a model for the future”) were also chosen, but due to internal problems they were not able to present their case at the Expo.