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50 free Shanghai trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Shanghai went from a fishing village behind a pirate wall to the world's busiest container port, and this quiz covers the road between. It starts with the meaning of the name and the fishing tool behind Hù, moves through the 1842 treaty, the International Settlement and French Concession, the founding of the Communist Party, Shanghailanders and Jewish refugees, the PLA's arrival in 1949 and Deng Xiaoping's 1990 green light for Pudong. The skyline gets its share: the Bund and where its name comes from, the Oriental Pearl's 468 metres, the Shanghai Tower and its rooftop hotel, the maglev's 431 km/h, the world's largest metro, Expo 2010's 73 million visitors and Disney's biggest castle. There are questions on Yu Garden, shikumen houses, Nanjing Road, Nanxiang soup dumplings, Benbang cuisine, Shanghainese and Wu Chinese, Yao Ming, the Chinese Grand Prix and Fudan and Jiao Tong. Easy questions ask which river splits the city and what the name means; hard ones want the emperor who moved the customs house and the secret society that seized the Old City in 1853. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the city and its landmarks, and each question carries the sentence that supports it. Try our Beijing and China quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The two characters of Shanghai's name together mean what?
On the Sea
'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.
Q 02Which river bisects Shanghai, dividing Puxi from Pudong?
The Huangpu
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.
Q 03Shanghai's Chinese abbreviation Hù comes from a word for what?
A fishing tool
The character appears on the city's licence plates; another old name, Shēn, honours Lord Chunshen whose fief covered the area.
Q 04Shanghai's first city wall, built in 1554, was intended to protect the town from whom?
Japanese pirates
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.
Q 05Which 1842 agreement ending the First Opium War opened Shanghai as one of five treaty ports?
Nanking
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.
Q 06In 1863 the British and American settlements merged to form what?
The Shanghai International Settlement
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.
Q 07The Chinese Communist Party was founded in July 1921 in which part of Shanghai?
The French Concession
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.
Q 08Long-term foreign residents of 1930s Shanghai called themselves what?
Shanghailanders
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.
Q 09Which Japanese vice-consul in Lithuania issued thousands of visas to Jewish refugees bound for Shanghai?
Chiune Sugihara
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.
Q 10Which leader permitted Shanghai to begin economic reforms in 1990, opening up Pudong?
Deng Xiaoping
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.
Q 11In 2010 Shanghai's harbour became the world's what?
Busiest container port
Shanghai became the world's busiest container port in 2010, overtaking Singapore; the deep-water Yangshan terminal handles much of the traffic.
Q 12Shanghai is one of how many directly administered municipalities in China?
Four
Four: Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing are provincial-level municipalities under the central government; Chongqing became the fourth in 1997.
Q 13The word 'Bund', for Shanghai's famous waterfront, was borrowed into English from which language?
Hindustani
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.
Q 21Before May 2021 the Shanghai maglev, the world's fastest commercial train, cruised at what speed?
431 km/h
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.
Q 22As of 2025, the Shanghai Metro, opened in 1993, was described as what?
The largest network in the world by route length
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.
Q 23Shanghai's two commercial airports are Pudong and which other, mainly for domestic flights?
Hongqiao
Q 14The Bund's row of early 20th-century buildings faces which modern skyscraper district across the river?
Lujiazui
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.
Q 15The Oriental Pearl Tower, built 1991–94, stands how tall including its antenna?
468 metres
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.
Q 16The Shanghai Tower, completed in 2015, rises to what height?
632 metres
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.
Q 17Which American firm designed the Shanghai Tower, with Shanghainese architect Jun Xia leading the team?
Gensler
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.
Q 18Which Shanghai skyscraper is nicknamed 'the bottle opener' for the opening at its top?
Shanghai World Financial Center
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.
Q 19Yu Garden in the Old City was first built in 1559 by Pan Yunduan as a comfort for whom?
His elderly father
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.
Q 20The Shanghai maglev, opened in 2004, links Longyang Road with which airport?
Pudong International
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.
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.
Q 24Expo 2010 in Shanghai set a record for attendance with roughly how many visitors, in millions?
About 73
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.
Q 25What was the theme of Expo 2010 Shanghai?
Better City – Better Life
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.
Q 26Shanghai's Disney park, opened in June 2016, features which distinction among the company's parks?
The biggest castle of any of them
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.
Q 27Nanjing Road, Shanghai's main shopping street, is named after a city that was once capital of what?
The Republic of China
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.
Q 28Shanghai-style xiaolongbao are associated with which former village, now in Jiading District?
Nanxiang
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.
Q 29Which of these is a signature dish of Shanghai's Benbang cuisine, alongside xiaolongbao and hairy crab?
Red braised pork belly
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.
Q 30The local language, Shanghainese, belongs to which branch of Chinese?
Wu
Shanghainese is a Wu variety, close to the speech of Suzhou and Ningbo and mutually unintelligible with Mandarin.