By Chinese standards, the development of Shanghai, which means “above the sea,” is a recent phenomenon. Shanghai is once more at the forefront of business and fashion trends, and has a pulsating nightlife, with many clubs and bars.

Of shanghai’s three main areas, the Old City to the south is typically Chinese, with alleys, markets, and temples. It is also the site of the Yu Gardens (Yu Yuan), Shanghai’s finest traditional garden. The Bund, the riverside promenade lined with grand colonial buildings, including the Peace Hotel and the Shanghai Club, and the city’s two main shopping streets, Nanjing Lu and Huaihai Lu. Pudong, Shanghai’s newest district, on the Huangpu’s east bank, is now an immense business zone, with some of the highest buildings in the world.

The Bund of Shanghai

Some places are forever associated with a single landmark and in the case of Shanghai it is surely the Bund. The Bund flanked on one side by the Huangpu River and on the other by the hotels, banks, offices and clubs. Most of the old buildings are still in place and a walk along here can easily absorb a couple of pleasant hours.

Nanjing Lu

Running west from the Bund, Nanjing Lu is considered to be Shanghai’s foremost shopping street, despite competition from areas such as chic Huaihai. The street is divided in two — Nanjing Dong Lu (East) runs from the Bund to just before People’s Park, after which it becomes Nanjing Xi Lu (West), a total length of 10 km. The “shopper’s paradise” is along Nanjing Dong Lu, where huge department stores vie for space with small specialty shops. Theaters, cinemas, restaurants, beauty salons, and crowds of shoppers complete the picture. Before 1949, all the major stores were located here. One of them, the Sun Department Store, is now the Shanghai No.1 Department Store, which attracts 100,000 customers every day with its exotic window displays. As window shopping is such a popular pastime, the pedestrianized section of Nanjing Dong Lu between People’s Park and the Bund, is perpetually busy. Farther west, Nanjing Xi Lu, formerly known as Bubbling Well Road after the well near Jing’an Temple, is more upscale and less crowded. It runs past the Pacific Hotel, with its impressive exterior and fine plasterwork interior, and the rundown Park Hotel, once one of the city’s most fashionable hotels, as well as China’s tallest building when it was built in 1934. Nanjing Xi Lu continues west past exclusive shopping and residential developments such as the Shanghai Center, a clutch of designer shops, restaurants, and apartments clustered around the Portman Ritz-Carlton Hotel, opposite the Shanghai Exhibition Center.

Pudong

In the mid-20th century, Pudong, facing the Bund on the other side of Huangpu, was the city’s poorest quarter. In 1990, it acquired the status of Special Economic Zone, and has since become one of the largest building sites in the world, supposedly festooned with a third of the world’s large cranes. The transformation has been remarkable - a forest of skyscrapers has grown out of this run-down backwater as investment poured in. The 457-m Oriental Pearl TV Tower offers astounding views across the city from halfway up, and houses the interesting Shanghai History Museum. Pudong is also the site of the 421-m Jinmao Dasha, one of the tallest buildings in China, whose 88th-floor observation deck has views down on the Pearl. Both will be surpassed by the 460-m Shanghai Financial Center.