Regions & prefectures
ChinaRegions & prefectures
Shanghai
The city that invented Chinese modernity twice, in the 1930s and again in the 1990s.
- Capital
- Shanghai
- Status
- Municipality
- Region
- East China
- Must-see
- The Bund facing the Pudong towers
- Local specialty
- Xiaolongbao, shengjianbao, hairy crab
A fishing village until the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, Shanghai became within a century Asia’s most cosmopolitan port, with its international settlements, cinema, press and gambling houses. Shut down after 1949, it restarted in 1990 with the creation of the Pudong zone, then rice fields facing the Bund: thirty years on, Shanghai Tower rises there to 632 metres. The port is the world’s largest by container volume.
What to see there
Places, dishes and traditions tied to this territory.
In the magazine
Articles that cover this topic.