Overview
Shanghai is China's financial capital and most cosmopolitan city — a metropolis where the early-20th-century Bund faces the futuristic Pudong skyline across the Huangpu River, and where the tree-lined lanes of the former French Concession coexist with some of Asia's tallest towers.
Travel
The Bund (Waitan) — a kilometre-long waterfront promenade lined with neoclassical, Art Deco, and Beaux-Arts banking houses from Shanghai's boom decades as the financial hub of East Asia — faces the Pudong skyline across the Huangpu River in a panorama that captures Shanghai's arc from regional trading port to global financial metropolis in a single glance. The Oriental Pearl Tower, Jin Mao Tower, Shanghai World Financial Center, and the twisting 632-metre Shanghai Tower (the world's third-tallest building, behind the Burj Khalifa and Kuala Lumpur's Merdeka 118) cluster on the Pudong side, their observation decks offering vertiginous views over the river and city. The former French Concession, Shanghai's most walkable quarter, threads tree-lined boulevards — Wukang Road, Fuxing Road, Huaihai Road — through a neighbourhood of 1920s-30s lane houses (shikumen), independent cafes, vintage boutiques, and some of the city's best restaurants. Yu Garden (Yuyuan), a classical Chinese garden from the Ming dynasty, and the surrounding old town bazaar provide a dense, atmospheric pocket of traditional architecture in the city's commercial heart. Nanjing Road, the main shopping thoroughfare, stretches from the Bund west to the upscale malls of Jing'an district. The Jade Buddha Temple, Longhua Temple, and the Jing'an Temple anchor the city's Buddhist heritage amid the commerce. M50 and the West Bund cultural corridor — including the Long Museum, Yuz Museum, and the Pompidou Centre's Shanghai outpost — have made the city a serious contemporary art destination. The street food anchors it all: xiaolongbao (soup dumplings), shengjianbao (pan-fried buns), scallion oil noodles, and hairy crab in autumn.
The Bund is Shanghai's most iconic promenade — a riverside walkway fronted by 52 buildings in styles ranging from neoclassical to Art Deco, built between the 1860s and 1930s when Shanghai was the financial hub of East Asia. The former HSBC Building (now the Pudong Development Bank), the Customs House with its clock tower, and the Peace Hotel (where Noel Coward wrote Private Lives) anchor the architectural ensemble. At night, both sides of the river illuminate: the Bund's stone facades glow gold while Pudong's towers pulse with LED displays. Cross the river via the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel (a kitsch but entertaining psychedelic ride) or the more practical ferry for a few yuan. On the Pudong side, the Shanghai Tower's observation deck on the 118th floor (at 546 metres, the world's highest enclosed observation deck) delivers a panorama over the entire Yangtze Delta on clear days. The Oriental Pearl Tower's glass-floored skywalk and the Shanghai World Financial Center's "bottle opener" top-floor bridge offer lower but equally dramatic perspectives.
Frequently asked questions
Tourism & destination guides
Diplomatic missions in Shanghai
15 embassies based in this city, grouped by region.
This overview comes from Visaja's worldwide missions database (visaja.com), checked against official government sources; for binding answers, the mission itself always has the final word.