Shanghai

Shanghai is a city on the coast of eastern China, where the Huangpu River meets the mouth of the Yangtze. It is governed directly by the central government, like a province of its own, and its name is read as ‘upon the sea’.

Shanghai Jiao Tong University began in the 1890s as Nanyang Public School, and Qian Xuesen, who later led the space program of China, studied engineering there. On People's Square, the Shanghai Museum shows ancient bronzes, ceramics and calligraphy from across the country. Yu Garden was laid out in the Ming dynasty by the official Pan Yunduan for his parents, with rockeries, ponds and carved pavilions beside the temple of the old town. Across the river, the Shanghai Tower rises 632 m (2,073 ft), its glass skin twisting as it climbs.

A market town grew on the Huangpu in the Song dynasty, and by the end of the 13th century it was the seat of its own county. Cotton from the farms around it was spun and woven in the town for centuries, and its cloth was sold far up the Yangtze. Shanghai opened to foreign trade in the 1840s, and British, American and French settlements spread north of the walled town. The stone banks and trading houses of the Bund, on the west bank of the Huangpu, went up in the following decades. Pudong, the farmland on the east bank, was opened to new development in 1990 and soon filled with towers of offices.

The Port of Shanghai has deep-water container terminals on the Yangshan islands in Hangzhou Bay, joined to the mainland by a long sea bridge. SAIC Motor, based in the city, builds cars under the Roewe and MG names and, with Volkswagen and General Motors as partners, many of the cars of those brands sold in China. Bilibili, a video site built around animation and games, also has its head office in Shanghai.