50 Fun Facts About Shanghai

The two characters of Shanghai's name together mean what?

'On the Sea': shàng (上, above) plus hǎi (海, sea). Historians think the area sat at sea level in the Tang era, so the land seemed to lie on the sea; the name dates from the Song dynasty.

Which river bisects Shanghai, dividing Puxi from Pudong?

The Huangpu River, Shanghai's mother river, flows 113 km from Dianshan Lake to the Yangtze; legend credits Lord Chunshen with ordering it dug in the Warring States period.

Shanghai's Chinese abbreviation Hù comes from a word for what?

The character appears on the city's licence plates; another old name, Shēn, honours Lord Chunshen whose fief covered the area.

Shanghai's first city wall, built in 1554, was intended to protect the town from whom?

The wall, 10 metres high and 5 km round, was built against the wokou, Japanese pirates raiding the coast; it was demolished in 1912 because it blocked the city's growth.

Which 1842 agreement ending the First Opium War opened Shanghai as one of five treaty ports?

The Treaty of Nanking (1842) opened Shanghai alongside Canton, Amoy, Foochow and Ningpo; Britain, France and the United States then set up settlements outside the walled Chinese city.

In 1863 the British and American settlements merged to form what?

The Shanghai International Settlement was formed in 1863 when the British and American areas merged; the French stayed out and kept their own concession to the south and southwest.

The Chinese Communist Party was founded in July 1921 in which part of Shanghai?

The First National Congress met in July 1921 at a house in the French Concession, now preserved in Xintiandi; after a police scare the delegates finished on a boat at Jiaxing.

Long-term foreign residents of 1930s Shanghai called themselves what?

Shanghailanders was the name long-term foreign residents gave themselves; by 1932 the city held some 70,000 foreigners, including a large community of White Russians.

Which Japanese vice-consul in Lithuania issued thousands of visas to Jewish refugees bound for Shanghai?

Chiune Sugihara wrote transit visas in Kaunas in 1940; many holders reached Shanghai via Japan and were later confined in the Hongkou ghetto, decreed in 1943, until Japan's surrender in 1945.

Which leader permitted Shanghai to begin economic reforms in 1990, opening up Pudong?

Deng Xiaoping gave the go-ahead in 1990, and Beijing named Shanghai the 'Dragon Head' of reform and opening up; the Pudong New Area rose on the east bank of the Huangpu.

In 2010 Shanghai's harbour became the world's what?

Shanghai became the world's busiest container port in 2010, overtaking Singapore; the deep-water Yangshan terminal handles much of the traffic.

Shanghai is one of how many directly administered municipalities in China?

Four: Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing are provincial-level municipalities under the central government; Chongqing became the fourth in 1997.

The word 'Bund', for Shanghai's famous waterfront, was borrowed into English from which language?

The word came into English from Hindustani 'band', an embankment or levee (ultimately Persian), carried to Shanghai by Britons from India; the riverside promenade was later raised on a flood wall above street level.

The Bund's row of early 20th-century buildings faces which modern skyscraper district across the river?

Lujiazui, in Pudong across the Huangpu, holds the Oriental Pearl Tower and the Shanghai Tower; the Bund itself was the foreign establishment's power centre from the 1860s to the 1930s.

The Oriental Pearl Tower, built 1991–94, stands how tall including its antenna?

The Oriental Pearl Tower stands 468 metres to the antenna tip; it was China's tallest structure until 2007, and its designers cited Bai Juyi's Tang poem about a pipa player's notes falling like pearls.

The Shanghai Tower, completed in 2015, rises to what height?

The Shanghai Tower rises 632 metres, making it China's tallest building on completion in 2015 and the second-tallest in the world at the time, behind only the Burj Khalifa.

Which American firm designed the Shanghai Tower, with Shanghainese architect Jun Xia leading the team?

Gensler designed the twisting, tiered tower, with Shanghainese architect Jun Xia leading; it stands beside the Jin Mao Tower and the World Financial Center, the world's first cluster of three adjacent supertalls.

Which Shanghai skyscraper is nicknamed 'the bottle opener' for the opening at its top?

The Shanghai World Financial Center, 492 metres tall and completed in 2008, has a trapezoid opening at its peak that earned it the 'bottle opener' nickname.

Yu Garden in the Old City was first built in 1559 by Pan Yunduan as a comfort for whom?

Pan Yunduan began the garden in 1559 for his elderly father, the Ming minister Pan En, to enjoy in retirement; its Exquisite Jade Rock is a porous five-ton boulder.

The Shanghai maglev, opened in 2004, links Longyang Road with which airport?

The maglev runs 30 km from Longyang Road to Pudong International Airport in about eight minutes; it was the world's first commercial high-speed maglev, using Transrapid technology from ThyssenKrupp and Siemens.

Before May 2021 the Shanghai maglev, the world's fastest commercial train, cruised at what speed?

It cruised at 431 km/h, covering the 30 km airport run in about seven minutes; in May 2021 the top speed was cut to 300 km/h.

As of 2025, the Shanghai Metro, opened in 1993, was described as what?

As of 2025 it was the largest metro network in the world by route length, with over 800 km of line, narrowly ahead of Beijing; only Beijing and Tianjin opened rapid transit earlier in mainland China.

Shanghai's two commercial airports are Pudong and which other, mainly for domestic flights?

Hongqiao Airport, in the west of the city, handles mostly domestic flights and shares a hub with Hongqiao railway station; the Airport Link Line joined it to Pudong in December 2024.

Expo 2010 in Shanghai set a record for attendance with roughly how many visitors, in millions?

Expo 2010 drew about 73 million visitors over six months, a World Expo record; some 246 countries and organisations took part on the largest Expo site to that date, 5.28 square km.

What was the theme of Expo 2010 Shanghai?

The theme was 'Better City, Better Life'; the emblem reworked the character 世 (world) into three figures, and the red China Pavilion survives as the China Art Museum.

Shanghai's Disney park, opened in June 2016, features which distinction among the company's parks?

The Enchanted Storybook Castle is the biggest castle in any Disney park; it anchors themed lands including the first Zootopia land, which opened in 2023.

Nanjing Road, Shanghai's main shopping street, is named after a city that was once capital of what?

Nanjing served as capital of the Republic of China from 1927 to 1949; Nanjing Road's western half was once Bubbling Well Road, and the two met at the old Shanghai Race Club.

Shanghai-style xiaolongbao are associated with which former village, now in Jiading District?

Nanxiang, a former village in Jiading District, gave its name to Nanxiang xiaolongbao in the 1870s; in Shanghainese they are xiaolong mantou, and the Suzhou style is bigger and sweeter.

Which of these is a signature dish of Shanghai's Benbang cuisine, alongside xiaolongbao and hairy crab?

Red braised pork belly, hongshao rou, is a Shanghai classic cooked with soy sauce, rock sugar and Shaoxing wine; Benbang cooking is known for its rich, sweet 'thick oil, red sauce' style.

The local language, Shanghainese, belongs to which branch of Chinese?

Shanghainese is a Wu variety, close to the speech of Suzhou and Ningbo and mutually unintelligible with Mandarin.

The traditional Shanghai townhouse with a heavy wooden door in a stone arch is called what?

Shikumen means 'stone storage door'; these grey-brick lane houses of two or three storeys, built for the crowded concessions, mix Western terraces with Chinese courtyards.

China's first short film, The Difficult Couple, was made in Shanghai in which year?

The Difficult Couple, a 1913 comedy by Zheng Zhengqiu and Zhang Shichuan, is counted as China's first short fiction film; the first feature, An Orphan Rescues His Grandfather, followed in 1923.

Which NBA star was developed by the city's Sharks basketball club?

Yao Ming came through the Shanghai Sharks, led them to the 2002 CBA title, and bought the club in 2009 while playing for the Houston Rockets.

Since 2004 the Shanghai International Circuit has hosted which Formula One race?

The Chinese Grand Prix first ran at the Hermann Tilke-designed Shanghai International Circuit in 2004; the city also stages the ATP Shanghai Masters tennis tournament.

Which two of the city's universities belong to the elite C9 League?

Both rank in the world's top 35 research universities; the city is second globally for scientific output.

Shanghai's contemporary nickname Módū, first used in a 1924 Japanese novel, translates as what?

English nicknames include the Paris of the East, the Pearl of the Orient and the New York of China.

Chongming, at the northern tip of the municipality, ranks as what?

Chongming, about 1,270 km², is the second-largest island in mainland China after Hainan (Taiwan aside); formed from Yangtze silt, it was Shanghai's last county to become a district, in 2016.

Shanghai's skyscrapers must be built on deep concrete piles because of what?

The delta's soft, sandy soil of Yangtze silt cannot bear tall buildings, so towers stand on piles driven deep into the ground; the Jin Mao Tower's piles reach more than 80 metres down.

Which province borders Shanghai municipality to the south?

Zhejiang lies to the south, across Hangzhou Bay and a short land border; Jiangsu lies to the west and north, and the East China Sea to the east.

Which two temples, founded in the Three Kingdoms period, are Shanghai's oldest Buddhist sites?

Longhua and Jing'an temples both trace their founding to the Three Kingdoms era (AD 242 and 247); Longhua, with its 40-metre pagoda, is the city's largest temple.

A City God Temple was built in Shanghai in 1602, an honour normally reserved for what kind of city?

City God Temples were normally reserved for prefectural capitals, so granting one to the county seat of Shanghai in 1602 is read by scholars as a sign of its economic importance even then.

Which emperor moved the provincial customs office to Shanghai in 1732?

The Yongzheng Emperor, who reigned from 1722 to 1735, moved the Jiangsu customs office from Songjiang to Shanghai in 1732; Kangxi had lifted the ban on ocean-going ships in 1684.

On what date did the People's Liberation Army take control of Shanghai in 1949?

The PLA completed its capture of Shanghai on 27 May 1949 after a two-week campaign; most foreign firms then moved their offices to Hong Kong.

In 2022 the whole of Shanghai was locked down from 5 April until which date because of COVID-19?

The citywide lockdown lifted on 1 June 2022 after nearly two months; food-supply chains broke down and shortages spread across the city.

Shanghai was elevated to a municipality on 7 July of which year, starting its 'golden age'?

Shanghai became a special municipality on 7 July 1927 under the new Nationalist government; the 494 km² city planned a fresh civic centre at Jiangwan, outside the foreign concessions.

Shanghai's Old City fell in 1853 to rebels from which group, before the Qing retook it in 1855?

Taiping rebels attacked twice in 1860–62 and razed the eastern and southern suburbs but failed to take the city.

Which Shanghai-headquartered company builds the C919 passenger jet?

COMAC, headquartered in Shanghai, assembles the C919 narrow-body jet there; the aircraft first flew in 2017 and entered service with China Eastern in 2023.

The Shanghai International Film Festival, an A-category festival, was founded in which year?

The festival was founded in 1993 and awards the Golden Goblet; it recalls the 1930s studio boom that made stars of Ruan Lingyu and Hu Die.

Which 32-kilometre crossing links Yangshan deep-water port to the Shanghai mainland?

Donghai Bridge, 32.5 km long and opened in 2005, carries containers from Yangshan's islands to the mainland; Yangshan was built because the Yangtze channel was too shallow for the largest ships.

In September 2013 Shanghai launched mainland China's first what?

The Shanghai Pilot Free-Trade Zone opened on 29 September 2013 as the first on the mainland, covering 28.78 km² in Pudong to test looser rules on finance and foreign investment.