Word Esperanto Congress

The first International Congress of Esperanto took place in Boulogne sur Mer, France, in 1905, where 688 Esperantists met for the first time. For them the experience must have been near to miraculous. Most of them had never spoken the language with any other person until they met up in Boulogne. To suddenly find that they were able to understand and be understood must have been astonishing. (I know that I was amazed when I first spoke with other Esperantists after nothing more than working through the book "Teach Yourself Esperanto").

A World Congress has taken place every year, except during the War years, and the number of participants varies between 310 (Washington 1910) and 5946 (Warsaw 1987, the centenary of the publication of Esperanto). The average number in recent years is around 1750 participants.

The World Congress is regarded by many as the pinnacle of the Esperanto calendar with hundreds of programme items covering literature, music, meetings of special interest groups, dinners, dances and so on.

The Congress is organised by Universala Esperanto Asocio (UEA) (World Esperanto Association) whose pages in English can be found here.

UEA also has a lively youth section called Tutmonda Esperantista Junulara Organizo (TEJO) (World Esperantist Youth Organization). Some English language information can be found here. (The links on the left lead to English pages, and on the main page if you scroll down you'll find a small section in English with two links to further pages in English).