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Old City of Shanghai, Shanghai — Area Guide & Where to Stay
The Old City of Shanghai is the historic walled quarter of Shanghai, now folded into Huangpu District.
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Where to stay in Old City of Shanghai
Where the beds are, and what that means for the visit.
Choose your side of the old wall. The Old City of Shanghai forms a rounded historic core inside Huangpu District, and where you book decides whether you wake to the market lanes around the Dajing Ge Pavilion or to the wider Puxi grid that carries the metro back across Shanghai. The oval street plan still guides every walk.
Visitors chasing the walled-city record settle near the Dajing Ge Pavilion, while those wanting river views and towers lean toward the Pudong bank across the Huangpu River, an easy hop from the Old City of Shanghai.
Find hotels in Old City of Shanghai
Direct booking searches for these neighbourhoods.
Dajing Ge lanes
The Dajing Ge Pavilion marks the last standing fragment of the Old City of Shanghai wall, wrapped in tight market streets.Find hotels in Dajing Ge lanesmetro-minded stays on the wider Puxi streets ringing the old corePuxi grid
The Puxi blocks around the historic quarter trade the crowded lanes for straighter avenues and quicker rail links across Shanghai.Find hotels in Puxi gridriver-view nights facing the Pudong bankHuangpu River edge toward Pudong
The eastern approach to the Huangpu River sets the Old City of Shanghai against the Pudong towers rising over the far shore.Find hotels in Huangpu River edge toward PudongHotel links are affiliate links: booking through them may earn us a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never affects how places are ranked. How this works
Things to do in and around Shanghai
Ranked by global recognition; descriptions from Wikidata (CC0).
Museums & Galleries
3- Site of the First Congress of the Chinese Communist Party Heritage
- Shanghai Museum
- Shanghai Natural History Museum
Churches & Religious Sites
3- St. Francis Xavier Church Heritage
- Saint Joseph's Church Heritage
- Moore Memorial Church Heritage
Landmarks & Notable Places
2- Former Residence of Sun Yat-sen in Shanghai Heritage
- Gutzlaff Signal Tower Heritage
worth knowingacross 3 categories in and around Shanghai
About Old City of Shanghai
What are the main landmarks in Old City of Shanghai?
The quarter orients around its vanished wall. Its Dajing Ge Pavilion survives as the one standing piece of the fortification that once ringed the Old City of Shanghai, and the rounded street loop that replaced the rest still traces where the ramparts ran. The circle is the map.
Anyone crossing the Old City of Shanghai reads distance against the Dajing Ge Pavilion at the core, the Puxi grid spreading outward, and the Huangpu River that separates this bank from the Pudong towers to the east.
What is the history of Old City of Shanghai?
The wall carries the quarter's older story. A single gate pavilion survives in the Dajing Ge Pavilion, which shows how the ramparts once enclosed the Old City of Shanghai as a self-governing Chinese town, sealed off from the foreign concessions that later grew across the rest of Shanghai. The stone came down first.
When the fortifications were dismantled, their oval line became a ring road, and the Laochengxiang characters that name this core still set it apart from the concession-era Puxi streets that ring it.
Where is Old City of Shanghai?
The Old City of Shanghai holds the rounded historic core of Huangpu District on the Puxi bank, its old wall line marked by the Dajing Ge Pavilion and facing the Pudong towers across the Huangpu River.
Common questions
What is the best area to stay in Old City of Shanghai?
Dajing Ge lanes: walkers tracing the old wall line beside the Dajing Ge Pavilion. Puxi grid: metro-minded stays on the wider Puxi streets ringing the old core. Huangpu River edge toward Pudong: river-view nights facing the Pudong bank.
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Updated October 2026