Where to Stay in Shanghai, Shanghai Shi

What is Shanghai known for?

Shanghai is China's financial and fashion capital, a treaty port where Western concessions left Art Deco terraces, shikumen lanes, and merchant villas across the former foreign quarters. Money and style define it. The Oriental Pearl Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center rise above the Huangpu River, while the Shanghai Museum and the Rockbund Art Museum hold its collections.

East and West sit side by side.

What are the main landmarks in Shanghai?

Shanghai keeps its landmarks on both banks of the Huangpu River. The Oriental Pearl Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center define a skyline that draws the eye across the water, floodlit after dark. Nearby stand the Shanghai Museum, the Rockbund Art Museum, and the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium.

The Site of the First Congress of the Chinese Communist Party and the Former Residence of Sun Yat-sen record its political past. Old and new share the shore.

What is the history of Shanghai?

Shanghai began as Huating, a county town founded in 751, long before river trade made it wealthy. For centuries it stayed a modest market town on the Huangpu River, well before the age of concessions. The treaty era changed everything.

After the mid-19th century, Western powers carved concessions from the walled city, and foreign firms raised the wharves, banks, and Art Deco terraces that still stand along the water. River trade made its fortune. The concession decades gave Shanghai its shikumen lanes, its Western-style churches, and its blend of Chinese and European building.

The Site of the First Congress of the Chinese Communist Party records the party's first meeting, held in the city, while the Former Residence of Sun Yat-sen preserves his home among the former foreign quarters. Then came war and revolution. The concessions became ordinary streets, the old temples and the Dajing Ge Pavilion survived amid the growth, and the Huangpu River's eastern bank filled with towers.

Towers crowned the new skyline, from the Oriental Pearl Tower to the Shanghai World Financial Center. The Shanghai Museum gathered the country's bronzes and ceramics into one hall.

Where is Shanghai?

Shanghai lies on the estuary of the Yangtze River, where the great river empties into the sea. The Huangpu River runs through the middle of the city, splitting the older western districts from the high-rise eastern bank. Around the built core spreads a flat delta of creeks, canals, and reclaimed farmland.

Shanghai Shi, the municipality that contains the city, stretches from the river mouth to the open coast. Water shapes it all.

What is the climate of Shanghai?

Shanghai has a humid subtropical climate, shaped by the sea and the moisture of the Yangtze estuary. Summers dominate. They are hot, wet, and heavy with monsoon rain, and the late-summer months can bring typhoons sweeping in off the coast.

Winters stay cool and damp rather than truly cold. Spring and autumn are the kindest seasons for walking the Huangpu River waterfront.

How do you get to Shanghai?

Shanghai is reached by air, rail, and water, a hub at the mouth of the Yangtze River. Long-distance trains converge on the city, a rail past recalled at the Shanghai Railway Museum. Ships still work the Huangpu River.

Deep-water berths line the estuary of the Yangtze River, where sea trade first tied the settlement to the wider world and where cargo ships pass in and out of the delta. Metro lines and ring roads carry the rest of the traffic inland from the airports on the edge of the delta.