Located in the Yangtze River Delta in eastern China, Shanghai sits at the mouth of the Yangtze River in the middle portion of the Chinese coast. The municipality borders Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces to the west, and is bounded to the east by the East China Sea. Once a fishing and textiles town, Shanghai grew in importance in the 19th century due to its favorable port location and was one of the cities opened to foreign trade by the 1842 Treaty of Nanking. The city then flourished as a center of commerce between east and west, and became the undisputed financial hub of the Asia Pacific in the 1930s. ![]() However, with the Communist Party takeover of the mainland in 1949, the city's international influence declined. In the 1990s, the economic reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping resulted in an intense re-development of the city, aiding the return of finance and foreign investment to the city. Shanghai is also a popular tourist destination renowned for its historical landmarks such as The Bund, City God Temple and Yuyuan Garden, as well as the extensive and growing Pudong skyline. ![]() It is described as the "showpiece" of the booming economy of mainland China. The two Chinese characters in the city's name are 上 ("above") and 海 ("sea"), together meaning "Upon-the-Sea". The earliest occurrence of this name dates from the 11th century Song Dynasty, at which time there was already a river confluence and a town with this name in the area. There are disputes as to exactly how the name should be interpreted, but Chinese historians have concluded that during the Tang Dynasty Shanghai was literally on the sea, hence the origin of the name. Older Chinese was written right-to-left, so a reversed order " 海 上" is sometimes used for terms related to Shanghainese art and culture. Shanghai is officially abbreviated 沪 ( Hù) in Chinese, a contraction of 沪渎 ( Hù Dú, lit " Harpoon Ditch"), a 4th or 5th century Jin name for the mouth of Suzhou Creek when it was the main conduit into the ocean. This character appears on all motor vehicle license plates issued in the municipality today.Īn older name for Shanghai is Shēn ( 申), from Chunshen Jun ( 春 申 君), a nobleman and locally-revered hero of the third-century BC state of Chu. From this, it is also called Shēnchéng ( 申 城, "Shen City"). Sports teams and newspapers in Shanghai often use this character in their names.Īnother early name for Shanghai was Huating ( 华 亭). In 751 AD, during the mid- Tang Dynasty, Huating County was established at modern-day Songjiang, the first county-level administration within modern-day Shanghai. Today, Huating appears as the name of a four-star hotel in the city. The city has also has various nicknames in English, including "Paris of the East". The walled Old City of Shanghai during the Ming Dynastyĭuring the Song Dynasty (AD 960–1279) Shanghai was upgraded in status from a village to a market town in 1074, and in 1172 a second sea wall was built to stabilize the ocean coastline, supplementing an earlier dyke. From the Yuan Dynasty in 1292 until Shanghai officially became a city for the first time in 1927, the area was designated merely as a county seat administered by the Songjiang prefecture. ![]() Two important events helped promote Shanghai's development in the Ming Dynasty. A city wall was built for the first time in 1554 to protect the town from raids by Japanese pirates. It measured 10 metres high and 5 kilometres in circumference.
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