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A section of Shanghai's Pudong

Shanghai (上海)
Location in the People's Republic of China
Basic Information
Origin of name: 上 shàng - on
海 hǎi - sea
市 shì - city
"City on the Sea"
Abbreviation: 沪 Hù and 申 Shēn
Area: 6,340.5 km² (31st)
Population (2004): 17,420,000 (25th) Municipality
9,838,000 Urban Area, 2001 est.
Density (2004): 2750/km² (1st) Municipality
GDP (2004):
 - per capita 		CNY 745.0 billion (7th)
CNY 42,800 (1st)
HDI (2005) 0.909 (1st) — high
Major nationalities (2000): Han - 99%
Hui - 0.4%
City flower: Yulan magnolia
(Magnolia denudata)
Elevation: 0 - 103.4 m
Coordinates:
Postal code: 200000 - 202100
Area code: +86/21
License plate prefixes : 沪A, B, D, E
沪C (outer suburbs)
ISO 3166-2: cn-31
Time zone : UTC+8
Website : www.shanghai.gov.cn
Government
Administration Type: Municipality
CPC Shanghai
Committee Secretary: 		Chen Liangyu
Mayor: Han Zheng
County-level divisions: 18 Districts and 1 County
Township-level divisions: 220 Towns and Villages
Shanghai (Chinese: 上海; pinyin: ; Shanghainese: ), situated on the banks of the Yangtze River Delta in East China, is the largest city of People's Republic of China. Widely regarded as the citadel of China's modern economy, the city also serves as one of the most important cultural, commercial, financial, industrial and communications centers of China. Administratively, Shanghai is a municipality of the People's Republic of China that has province-level status. Shanghai is also one of the world's busiest ports, and became the largest cargo port in the world in 2005 List of the busiest ports in the world.

Originally a sleepy fishing town, Shanghai became China's most important city by the 20th century and was the centre of popular culture, vice, intellectual discourse and political intrigue during the Republic of China. Shanghai once became the third largest financial centre in the world, ranking after New York City and London, and the largest commercial city in the Far East in the late 19th century and early 20th century. After the communist takeover in 1949, Shanghai languished under heavy central government taxation and much of its bourgeois elements were purged. After the central government authorized the market-economic redevelopment of Shanghai in 1992, Shanghai quickly surpassed early-starters Shenzhen and Guangzhou, and has since led China's economic growth. Some challenges remain for Shanghai at the beginning of the 21st century, as the city struggles to cope with increased worker migration, and a huge wealth gap. However, these challenges aside, Shanghai's skyscrapers and modern lifestyle mark the pinnacle of China's recent economic development.

Origin of name

The two Chinese characters in the name "Shanghai" (see left) literally mean "on" and "sea". The local Shanghainese pronunciation of Shanghai is , while the Standard Mandarin pronunciation in Hanyu Pinyin is Shànghǎi. The earliest occurrence of this name dates from the Song Dynasty (11th century), at which time there was already a river confluence and a town with this name in the area. There are disputes as to how the name should be interpreted, but official local histories have consistently said that it means "the upper reaches of the sea" (海之上洋). However, another reading, especially in Mandarin, also suggests the sense of "go onto the sea," which is consistent with the seaport status of the city. The more poetic name for Shanghai switches the order of the two characters, i.e., Haishang (海上), and is often used for terms related to Shanghainese art and culture. In the West, Shanghai has also been spelled Schanghai (in German), Sjanghai (in Dutch), Xangai (in Portuguese) and Changhaï (in French), but since the 1990s the Hanyu Pinyin spelling of "Shanghai" has become universal in the West. In Japanese, Shanghai is written using the same two Chinese characters (上海), and the Japanese pronunciation Shanhai (シャンハイ) is an approximate of the Mandarin pronunciation. Shanghai's abbreviations in Chinese are Hù (沪) and Shēn (申). The former is derived from the ancient name Hu Du (沪渎) of the river now known as Suzhou Creek. The latter is derived from the name of Chunshen Jun (春申君), a nobleman of the Chu Kingdom (楚国) in the 3rd century B.C. whose territory included the Shanghai area and has locally been revered as a hero. Sports teams and newspapers in Shanghai often use the character Shēn (申) in their names. Shanghai is also commonly called Shēnchéng (申城, "City of Shēn").

The city has had various nicknames in English, including "Paris of the East", "Queen of the Orient", "Pearl of the Orient", and even "The Whore of Asia" (a reference to corruption in the 1920s and 1930s, including vice, drugs and prostitution).

History

Pre-19th century

Before the formation of Shanghai city, Shanghai was part of Songjiang county (松江縣), governed by Suzhou prefecture (蘇州府). From the time of the Song Dynasty (960-1279), Shanghai gradually became a busy seaport, outgrowing its political jurisdictions (for instance, Songjiang (淞江) today is one of 18 districts within Shanghai). A city wall was built in AD 1553, which is generally regarded as the beginning of the city of Shanghai. Before the 19th century, Shanghai was not a major city, so in contrast to other major Chinese cities today, there are fewer ancient Chinese landmarks to be found in Shanghai. However, the few cultural landmarks in Shanghai are very ancient and typically date to the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history, because present-day Shanghai is within the historic cultural center of the Wu Kingdom (222-280).

During the Qianlong era of the Qing Dynasty, Shanghai became an important port regionally for the Yangtze and Huangpu rivers and a sea port for the nearby Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, although overseas commerce was still forbidden at that time. Wujiaochang (五角场), now in Yangpu District, and the areas nearby already formed the foundation of the city centre. In the later years of the Qianlong era, Shiliupu (十六铺), now in Huangpu District, was already the largest port in East Asia.

19th to early 20th century

The importance of Shanghai grew radically in the 19th century, as the city's strategic position at the mouth of the Yangtze River made it an ideal location for trade with the West.

During the First Opium War in the early-19th century, British forces temporarily held Shanghai. The war ended with the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing, which saw the treaty ports, Shanghai included, opened for international trade. The Treaty of the Bogue signed in 1843, and the Sino-American Treaty of Wangsia signed in 1844 together saw foreign nations achieve extraterritoriality on Chinese soil, which officially lasted until 1943 but was essentially defunct by the late 1930s. The Taiping Rebellion broke out in 1850, and in 1853 Shanghai was occupied by a triad offshoot of the rebels, called the Small Swords Society. The fighting destroyed the countryside but left the foreigners' settlements untouched, and Chinese arrived seeking refuge. Although previously Chinese were forbidden to live in foreign settlements, 1854 saw new regulations drawn up making land available to Chinese. Land prices rose substantially.

1854 also saw the first annual meeting of the Shanghai Municipal Council, created in order to manage the foreign settlements. In 1863, the British settlement, located along the western bank of the Huangpu river to the south of Suzhou creek (Huangpu district), and American settlement, located on the western bank of the Huangpu river and to the north of Suzhou creek (Hankou district) joined in order to form the International Settlement. The French opted out of the Shanghai Municipal Council, and instead maintained its own French Concession, located to the west of the International Settlement. This period saw a large influx of migrants from Europe and North America, who called themselves "Shanghighlanders".

The Sino-Japanese War fought 1894-95 over control of Korea concluded with the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which saw Japan emerge as an additional foreign power in Shanghai. Japan built the first factories in Shanghai, which were soon copied by other foreign powers to effect the emergence of Shanghai industry. Sihang defenders.jpg defenders during the 1937 Battle of Shanghai against the invading Japanese army, start of full-scale war.]]Shanghai was then the biggest financial city in the Far East. Under the Republic of China, Shanghai was made a special city in 1927, and a municipality in May 1930. The Japanese Navy bombed Shanghai on January 28, 1932, nominally in an effort to crush down Chinese student protests of the Manchurian Incident and the subsequent Japanese occupation. The Chinese fought back in what was known as the January 28 Incident. The two sides fought to a standstill and a ceasefire was brokered in May. In the Second Sino-Japanese War, the city fell after the Battle of Shanghai in 1937, and was occupied until Japan's surrender in 1945.

During World War II
During World War II, Shanghai was a centre for refugees from Europe. It was the only city in the world that was open unconditionally to the Jews at the time. However, under pressure from their Nazi allies, the Japanese ghettoised the Jewish refugees in late 1941 in what came to be known as the Shanghai ghetto, and hunger and infectious diseases such as amoebic dysentery became rife.

Communist rule

On May 27, 1949, Shanghai came under communist control and was one of the only two former Republic of China (ROC) municipalities not merged into neighbouring provinces over the next decade (the other being Beijing). It underwent a series of changes in the boundaries of its subdivisions, especially in the next decade.

After the communist takeover in 1949, most foreign firms moved their offices from Shanghai to Hong Kong. During the 1950s and 1960s, Shanghai became an industrial center and center for revolutionary leftism. Yet, even during the most tumultuous times of the Cultural Revolution, Shanghai was able to maintain high economic productivity and relative social stability. In most of the history of the People's Republic of China (PRC), Shanghai has been the largest contributor of tax revenue to the central government compared with other Chinese provinces and municipalities. This came at the cost of severely crippling Shanghai's infrastructure and capital development. Its importance to China's fiscal well-being also denied it economic liberalizations that were started in the far southern provinces such as Guangdong during the mid-1980s. At that time Guangdong province paid nearly no taxes to the central government, and thus was perceived as fiscally expendable for experimental economic reforms. Shanghai was not permitted to initiate economic reforms until 1991.

Political power in Shanghai has traditionally been seen as a stepping stone to higher positions within the PRC central government.In the 1990s, there was what was often described as the politically right-of-center "Shanghai clique," which included the president of the PRC Jiang Zemin and the premier of the PRC Zhu Rongji. Starting in 1992, the central government under Jiang Zemin, a former Mayor of Shanghai, began reducing the tax burden on Shanghai and encouraging both foreign and domestic investment in order to promote it as the economic hub of East Asia and to encourage its role as gateway of investment to the Chinese interior. Since then it has experienced continuous economic growth of between 9–15% annually, arguably at the expense of growth in Hong Kong, leading China's overall development.

Politics and Administration

Politics

Shanghai has been a political hub of China for many years. Many of China's top government officials in Beijing are known to have risen in Shanghai in the 1980s on a platform that was critical of the extreme leftism of the Cultural Revolution, giving them the tag "Shanghai Clique" during the 1990s. Many observers of Chinese politics view the more right-leaning Shanghai Clique as an opposing and competing faction of the current Chinese administration under Hu Jintao. Shanghai's top jobs, the Party Chief and the position of Mayor, has always been prominent on a national scale. Four Shanghai mayors eventually went on to take prominent Central Government positions, including former President Jiang Zemin and former Premier Zhu Rongji. The top administrative jobs are always appointed directly by the Central Government.

The current Shanghai government under Mayor Han Zheng has openly advocated transparency in the city's government. However, in previous years a complicated system of relationships between Shanghai's government, banks, and other civil institutions have been under scrutiny for corruption, motivated by politics in Beijing; these allegations from Beijing have mostly gone nowhere.

Administration

Main article: Districts and counties of Shanghai

Shanghai is administratively equal to a province and is divided into 19 county-level divisions: 18 districts and 1 county. There is no single downtown district in Shanghai, the urban core is scattered across several districts. Prominent central business areas include Lujiazui on the east bank of the Huangpu River, and The Bund and Hongqiao areas in the west bank of the Huangpu River. The city hall and major administration units are located in Huangpu District, which also serve as a commercial area, including the famous Nanjing Road. Other major commercial areas include the classy Xintiandi and Huaihai Road in Luwan district and Xujiahui in Xuhui District. Many universities in Shanghai are located in residential areas of Yangpu District and Putuo District.

Nine of the districts govern Puxi (literally West Bank), or the older part of urban Shanghai on the west bank of the Huangpu River. These nine districts are collectively referred to as Shanghai Proper (上海市区) or the core city (市中心):

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Shanghai".

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