Travel to Shanghai

By 2008, the population of Shanghai is around 16.738 million, including the migrant population, which made up more than 3 million. Since the 1990 census the total population had increased by 3.396 million, or 25.5%. Males accounted for 51.4%, females for 48.6% of the population. 12.2% were in the age group of 0–14, 76.3% between 15 and 64 and 11.5% were older than 65. 5.4% of the inhabitants were illiterate. As of 2007, the population of long-term residents reached 18.58 million, including an officially registered permanent population of 13.79 million, and 4.79 million of registered long-term migrants from other provinces, mostly from Anhui, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang Provinces. In addition, there are a large number of immigrants from Taiwan (estimates vary from 250,000 to 500,000). The average life expectancy in 2006 was 80.97 years, 78.67 for men and 82.29 for women.

Most registered Shanghainese residents are descendants of immigrants from Jiangsu and Zhejiang who moved to Shanghai in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, regions that generally also speak Wu Chinese. The many migrants coming to Shanghai from inland China have raised tensions in the past decade, often they do not speak the local dialect and therefore use Mandarin as a lingua franca. Rising crime rates, littering, harassive panhandling, and an overloading of the basic infrastructure (mainly public transportation and public schools) associated with the rise of these migrant populations (over 3 million new migrants in 2003 alone) have been generating some ill will from the Shanghainese. Efforts have been made by the local Shanghai municipal government to provide adequate welfare for the migrant populations in Shanghai, while also being cautious not to further increase the burdens of the native-born population.

Used language is Shanghainese, a dialect of Wu Chinese, while the official language is Standard Mandarin. The local dialect is mutually unintelligible with Mandarin, and is an inseparable part of the Shanghainese identity. The modern Shanghainese dialect is based on the Suzhou dialect of Wu, the prestige dialect of Wu spoken within the Chinese city of Shanghai prior to the modern expansion of the city, the Ningbo dialect of Wu, and the dialect of Shanghai's surrounding rural areas now within the Hongkou, Baoshan and Pudong districts, which is simply called "Bendihua", or "the local dialect". It is influenced to a lesser extent by the dialects of other nearby regions from which large numbers of people have have migrated to Shanghai since the 20th Century. Nearly all Shanghainese under the age of 40 can speak Mandarin fluently. Fluency in foreign languages is unevenly distributed. Most senior residents who received a university education before the revolution, and those who worked in foreign enterprises, can speak English. Those under the age of 26 have had contact with English since primary school, as English is taught as a mandatory course starting at Grade one.

Due to its cosmopolitan history, Shanghai has a rich blend of religious heritage as shown by the religious buildings and institutions still scattered around the city. Taoism has a presence in Shanghai in the form of several temples, including the City God Temple, at the heart of the old city, the Wenmiao, dedicated to Confucius, and a temple dedicated to the Three Kingdoms general Guan Yu. Buddhism has had a presence in Shanghai since ancient times. Longhua temple, the largest temple in Shanghai, and Jing'an Temple, were first founded in the Three Kingdoms period. Another important temple is the Jade Buddha Temple, which is named after a large statue of Buddha carved out of jade in the temple. In recent decades, dozens of modern temples have been built throughout the city. Shanghai is also an important center of Christianity in China. Churches belonging to various denominations are found throughout Shanghai and maintain significant congregations. Among Catholic churches, St Ignatius Cathedral in Xujiahui is the largest, while She Shan Basilica is the only active pilgrimage site in China. The city is also home to Muslim, Jewish, and Eastern Orthodox communities.

Shanghai is home to one the best universites in China, including Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Tongji University, which are becoming extremly popular not only in China, but in all of Asia.

The Shanghai Museum offers us to learn about ancient Chinese art and it is situated on the People's Square in the Huangpu District of Shanghai.

The Museum was founded in 1952 and was first opened to the public in the former Shanghai Racecourse club house.

In 1959 the Museum moved into the former Zhonghui Building, which previously housed insurance companies and bank offices.

In 1992 the Museum allocated a piece of land on People's Square by the Shanghai municipal government, as its new site.

Construction of the current building started in August 1993. It was inaugurated in October 12, 1996. It is 29.5 meters high with five floors, covering a total area of 39,200 m².

Designed by a local architect, the new museum building is designed in the shape of an ancient, bronze, tripod cooking vessel called a ding. It is said that the inspiration for the design was specifically provided by the Da Ke Ding, now on exhibit in the museum. The building has round top and a square base, symbolising the ancient Chinese perception of the world as "round sky, square earth".

The museum has a collection of over 120,000 pieces, including bronze, ceramics, calligraphy, furniture, jades, ancient coins, paintings, seals, sculptures, minority art and foreign art. It has eleven galleries and three special temporary exhibition halls, making it one of the most interesting museums in Asia.

Yuyuan Garden, located in the center of the Old City in Shanghai, China, is considered one of the four finest Chinese gardens.

The garden was reportedly first established in 1559 as a private garden created by Pan Yunduan, who spent almost 20 years building a garden to please his father Pan En, a high-ranking official in the Ming Dynasty, during his father's old age. Over the years, the gardens fell into disrepair until about 1760 when bought by merchants, then suffered extensive damage in the 19th century. In 1842, during the Opium Wars, the British army occupied the Town God Temple for five days. During the Taiping Rebellion the gardens were occupied by imperial troops, and damaged again by the Japanese in 1942. They were repaired by the Shanghai government from 1956-1961, opened to the public in 1961, and declared a national monument in 1982.

Today Yuyuan occupies an area of 2 hectares (5 acres), and is divided into six general areas laid out in the Suzhou style:
Grand Rockery - rockery made of huangshi stone (12 m high), featuring peaks, cliffs, winding caves and gorges. Thie scenery was possibly created by Zhang Nanyang in the Ming Dynasty. This area also contains the Sansui (Three Corn Ears} Hall.
Heralding Spring Hall (Dianchun) - built in 1820, the first year of the Emperor Daoguang's reign. From September 1853 to February 1855, it served as the base of the Society of Little Swords (Xiaodao Hui).
Inner Garden - rockeries, ponds, pavilions, and towers, first laid out in 1709 and more recently recreated in 1956 by combining its east and west gardens.
Jade Magnificence Hall (Yuhua) - furnished with rosewood pieces from the Ming Dynasty.
Lotus Pool - with a zigzag bridge and mid-lake pavilion.
Ten Thousand-Flower Tower (Wanhua)


Garden areas are separated by "dragon walls" with undulating gray tiled ridges, each terminating in a dragon's head. It is not clear how closely today's garden resembles its earlier versions.

Shanghai is situated on the banks of the Yangtze River Delta in East China, is the largest city of the People's Republic of China and the eighth largest in the world. Widely regarded as the citadel of China's modern economy, the city also serves as one of the nation's most important cultural, commercial, financial, industrial and communications centers.

Administratively, Shanghai is a municipality of the People's Republic of China that has province-level status. Also, Shanghai is one of the world's busiest ports, and became the largest cargo port in the world in 2005.

Originally a fishing town, Shanghai became China's most important city by the 20th century and was the center of popular culture, intellectual discourse and political struggle during the Republic of China era. After the communist takeover in 1949, Shanghai languished due to heavy central government taxation and cessation of foreign investment, and had many of its supposedly "bourgeois" elements purged. Following the central government's authorization of market-economic redevelopment of Shanghai in 1992, Shanghai has now 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, a huge wealth gap, and environmental degradation. Despite these challenges, Shanghai's skyscrapers and modern lifestyle are often seen as representing China's recent economic development.

Before the formation of Shanghai city, Shanghai was part of Songjiang county, governed by Suzhou prefecture. From the time of the Song Dynasty (AD 960–1279), Shanghai gradually became a busy seaport, outgrowing its original political jurisdictions. For instance, Songjiang today is one of 18 districts within Shanghai.

The city wall was built in AD 1553, which is generally accepted as the start of the city of Shanghai. However, before the nineteenth century, Shanghai was not considered a major city of China. Therefore, compared to most other major Chinese cities today, there are few ancient Chinese landmarks to be found in the city. The few cultural landmarks to be found are very ancient and typically date to the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history. This is mostly due to the fact that present-day Shanghai is within the historic cultural center of the Wu Kingdom (AD 222–280).

During the Qianlong era of the Qing Dynasty, Shanghai became an important regional port for the Yangtze and Huangpu rivers. It also became a major seaport for the nearby Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, although overseas commerce was still forbidden at that time. A historically important area of this era is Wujiaochang (now in the Yangpu District), the foundation of the city center. Around the end of the Qianlong era, Shiliupu (now in the Huangpu District) became the largest port in East Asia.

Shanghai has been a political hub of China since the 20th century. 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 President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao. Shanghai's top jobs, the Party Chief and the position of Mayor, have 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 has been under scrutiny for corruption, motivated by faction politics in Beijing; these allegations from Beijing did not go anywhere until late 2006. Since Jiang's departure from office there has been a significant amount of clash between the local government in Shanghai and the Central People's Government, an evolving example of de facto Chinese federalism. The Shanghai government looks after almost all of the city's economic interests without interference from Beijing.

By 2006, Shanghai's actual level of autonomy has arguably surpassed that of any autonomous regions, raising alarm bells in Beijing. In September 2006, the Shanghai Communist Party Secretary Chen Liangyu, Shanghainese in origin and often clashing with central government officials, along with a number of his followers, were removed from their positions after a probe into the city's pension fund. Over a hundred investigators, sent by the Central Government, reportedly uncovered clues of money diversion from the city's pension fund to unapproved loans and investments. Chen's abrupt removal is viewed by many Chinese as a political manoeuvre by President Hu Jintao to further secure his power in the country, and retain administrative centralism. In March 2007 the central government appointed Xi Jinping, who is not a Shanghai native, to become the Party Secretary, the most powerful office in the city.

Shanghai faces the East China Sea (part of the Pacific Ocean), and is bisected by the Huangpu River. Puxi contains the city proper on the western side of Huangpu River, while an entirely new financial district has been erected on the eastern bank of the Huangpu in Pudong.

Shanghai has a humid subtropical climate (Koppen climate classification Cfa). The average annual temperature is 16.58°C, which is low for a coastal location only 8° north of the tropics and is largely due to the presence of the Siberian high in the winter. The hottest year on record was 2007 (average temperature 18.10°C) and the coldest was 1885 (average 14.80°C).

Shanghai experiences all four seasons, with freezing temperatures during the winter season and a 32°C (90°F) average high during the hottest months of July and August. Temperature extremes of –10°C (14°F) and +41°C (105°F) have been recorded. Heavy rain is frequent in early summer. The weather in spring, although considered the most beautiful season, is highly variable, with frequent rain and alternating spells of warmth and cold. Summer is the peak tourist season, but is hot and oppressive, with high humidity. Autumn is generally sunny and dry, and the foliage season is in November. Winters are typically grey and dreary, with little or no snowfall. However, in late January and early February of 2008, heavy snow was recorded. The city has a few typhoon spells during the year, none of which in recent years have caused considerable damage.

The vernacular language is Shanghainese, a dialect of Wu Chinese; while the official language is Standard Mandarin. The local dialect is mutually unintelligible with Mandarin, and is an inseparable part of the Shanghainese identity. The Shanghainese dialect today is a mixture of standard Wu Chinese as spoken in Suzhou, with the dialects of Ningbo and other nearby regions whose peoples have migrated to Shanghai in large numbers since the 20th Century.

Nearly all Shanghainese under the age of 40 can speak Mandarin fluently. Fluency in foreign languages is unevenly distributed. Most senior residents who received a university education before the revolution, and those who worked in foreign enterprises, can speak English. Those under the age of 26 have had contact with English since primary school, as English is taught as a mandatory course starting at Grade 1.