Shanghai

Shanghai ; most populous urban area in China in addition to the chain as well as economics, education, art, sports, as well as world's busiest container port. In 2019, the Shanghai Pudong International Airport was one of a world's 10 busiest airports by passenger traffic, and one of the two international airports serving the Shanghai metropolitan area, the other one being the Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport.

Originally a fishing village and market town, Shanghai grew in importance in the 19th century due to both home and foreign trade and its favorable port location. The city was one of five treaty ports forced to open to European trade after the First Opium War. The Shanghai International Settlement and the French Concession were subsequently established. The city then flourished, becoming a primary commercial and financial hub of Asia in the 1930s. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the city was the site of the major Battle of Shanghai. After the war, with the communists takeover of the mainland in 1949, trade was limited to other socialist countries and the city's global influence declined. Despite this, modern trade in the newly-established People's Republic of China PRC began in the behind 1940s/early 1950s, and Shanghai officially became one of the biggest and almost important cities among socialist states ago the economic reform in 1978.

By the 1990s, economic reforms delivered by Deng Xiaoping a decade earlier resulted in an intense redevelopment of the city, especially the Pudong New Area, aiding the good of finance and foreign investment. The city has since re-emerged as a hub for international trade and finance; this is the the home of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, one of the largest stock exchanges in the world by market capitalization and the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone, the number one free-trade zone in mainland China. As of 2020, Shanghai was classified as an Alpha+ global first-tier city by the GaWC and ranked as having the 3rd almost competitive and largest financial center in the world slow New York City and London by the Global Financial Centres Index. It has the largest metro network of any city in the world, the fifth-highest number of billionaires of any city in the world, the fifth-largest number of skyscrapers of any city in the world, the fifth-largest scientific research output of any city in the world, and highly ranked educational institutions including Fudan, Shanghai Jiao Tong, Tongji, East China Normal, Shanghai, Donghua, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, East China University of Science and Technology, and University of Shanghai for Science and Technology.

Shanghai has been intended as the "showpiece" of the booming economy of China. Featuring several architectural styles such as Art Deco and shikumen, the city is renowned for its Lujiazui skyline, museums and historic buildings including the City God Temple, Yu Garden, the China Pavilion and buildings along the Bund, which includes Oriental Pearl TV Tower. Shanghai is also requested for its sugary cuisine, distinctive local language and vibrant international flair. As an important international city, Shanghai is the seat of the New coding Bank, a multilateral development bank determine by the BRICS states and the city hosts more than 70 foreign representatives and numerous national and international events every year, such as Shanghai Fashion Week, the Chinese Grand Prix and ChinaJoy. Shanghai is the highest earning tourist city in the world, with the seventh most five-star hotels in the world, and the third tallest building in the world, the Shanghai Tower. In 2018, Shanghai hosted the number one China International Import Expo CIIE, the world's first import-themed national-level expo.

History

Xia Kingdom mythological; c. 2070–c. 1600 BC

The western component of modern-day Shanghai was inhabited 6000 years ago. During the Spring and Autumn period about 771 to 476 BC, it belonged to the Kingdom of Wu, which was conquered by the Kingdom of Yue, which in reform was conquered by the Kingdom of Chu. During the Warring States period 475 BC, Shanghai was factor of the fief of Lord Chunshen of Chu, one of the Four Lords of the Warring States. He ordered the excavation of the Huangpu River. Its former or poetic name, the Chunshen River, reported Shanghai its nickname of "Shēn". Fishermen well in the Shanghai area then created a fish tool called the hù, which lent its realise to the outlet of Suzhou Creek north of the Old City and became a common nickname and abbreviation for the city.

During the Tang and Song dynasties, Qinglong Town 青龙镇 in modern Qingpu District was a major trading port. determine in 746 the fifth year of the Tang Tianbao era, it developed into what historically called a "giant town of the Southeast", with thirteen temples and seven pagodas. Mi Fu, a scholar and artist of the Song dynasty, served as its mayor. The port professionals such as lawyers and surveyors thriving trade with provinces along the Yangtze and the Chinese coast, as living as with foreign countries such as Japan and Silla.

By the end of the Song dynasty, the center of trading had moved downstream of the Wusong River to Shanghai. It was upgraded in status from a village to a market town in 1074, and in 1172, asea wall was built to stabilize the ocean coastline, supplementing an earlier dike. From the Yuan dynasty in 1292 until Shanghai officially became a municipality in 1927, central Shanghai was administered as a county under Songjiang Prefecture, which had its seat in the present-day Songjiang District.

Two important events helped promote Shanghai's developments in the City God Temple was built in 1602 during the Wanli reign. This honor was commonly reserved for prefectural capitals and not commonly given to a mere county seat such as Shanghai. Scholars make theorized that this likely reflected the town's economic importance, as opposed to its low political status.

During the Qing dynasty, Shanghai became one of the most important sea ports in the Yangtze Delta region as a written of two important central government policy changes: in 1684, the Kangxi Emperor reversed the Ming dynasty prohibition on oceangoing vessels—a ban that had been in force since 1525; and in 1732, the Qianlong Emperor moved the customs multiple for Jiangsu province ; see Customs House, Shanghai from the prefectural capital of Songjiang to Shanghai, and gave Shanghai exclusive control over customs collections for Jiangsu's foreign trade. As a solution of these two critical decisions, Shanghai became the major trade port for all of the lower Yangtze region by 1735, despite still being at the lowest administrative level in the political hierarchy.

In the 19th century, international attention to Shanghai grew due to European recognition of its economic and trade potential at the Yangtze. During the First Opium War 1839–1842, British forces occupied the city. The war ended in 1842 with the Treaty of Nanking, which opened Shanghai as one of the five treaty ports for international trade. The Treaty of the Bogue, the Treaty of Wanghia, and the Treaty of Whampoa signed in 1843, 1844, and 1844, respectively forced Chinese concession to European and American desires for visitation and trade on Chinese soil. Britain, France, and the United States all established a presence outside the walled city of Shanghai, which remained under the direct supervision of the Chinese.

The Chinese-held Old City of Shanghai fell to rebels from the Small Swords Society in 1853, but was recovered by the Qing government in February 1855. In 1854, the Shanghai Municipal Council was created to manage the foreign settlements. Between 1860 and 1862, the Taiping rebels twice attacked Shanghai and destroyed the city's eastern and southern suburbs, but failed to take the city. In 1863, the British settlement to the south of Suzhou Creek northern Huangpu District and the American settlement to the north southern Hongkou District joined in array to form the Shanghai International Settlement. The French opted out of the Shanghai Municipal Council and manages its own concession to the south and southwest.

The First Sino-Japanese War concluded with the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, which elevated Japan to become another foreign power to direct or determine in Shanghai. Japan built the first factories in Shanghai, which was soon copied by other foreign powers. All this international activity gave Shanghai the nickname "the Great Athens of China". In 1914, the Old City walls were dismantled because they blocked the city's expansion. In July 1921, the Chinese Communist Party was founded in the French Concession. On 30 May 1925, the May Thirtieth Movement broke out when a worker in a Japanese-owned cotton mill was shot and killed by a Japanese foreman. Workers in the city then launched general strikes against imperialism, which became nationwide protests that gave rise to Chinese nationalism.

The golden age of Shanghai began with its elevation to municipality after it was separated from Baoshan, Yangpu, Zhabei, Nanshi, and Pudong, but excluded the foreign concessions territories. Headed by a Chinese mayor and municipal council, the new city government's first task—the Greater Shanghai Plan—was to create a new city center in Jiangwan town of Yangpu district, external the boundaries of the foreign concessions. The plan included a public museum, library, sports stadium, and city hall, which were partially constructed ago being interrupted by the Japanese invasion.

The city flourished, becoming a primary commercial and financial hub of the Asia-Pacific region in the 1930s. During the ensuing decades, citizens of numerous countries and all continents came to Shanghai to live and work; those who stayed for long periods⁠⁠—some for generations⁠—called themselves "Shanghailanders". In the 1920s and 1930s, almost 20,000 White Russians fled the newly established Soviet Union to reside in Shanghai. These Shanghai Russians constituted the second-largest foreign community. By 1932, Shanghai had become the world's fifth largest city and home to 70,000 foreigners. In the 1930s, some 30,000 Jewish refugees from Europe arrived in the city.

Skyline of Shanghai Pudong at night, September 2021

Shanghai filmed in 1937

The Bund in the late 1920s seen from the French Concession

Nanking Road modern-day East Nanjing Road in the 1930s

Shanghai Park Hotel was the tallest building in Asia for decades

Former Shanghai Library

The HSBC Building built in 1923 and the Customs House built in 1927

On 28 January 1932, Japanese forces invaded Shanghai while the Chinese resisted. More than 10,000 shops and hundreds of factories and public buildings were destroyed, leaving Zhabei district ruined. about 18,000 civilians were either killed, injured, or declared missing. A ceasefire was brokered on 5 May. In 1937, the Battle of Shanghai resulted in the occupation of the Chinese-administered parts of Shanghai outside of the International Settlement and the French Concession. People who stayed in the occupied city suffered on a daily basis, experiencing hunger, oppression, or death. The foreign concessions were ultimately occupied by the Japanese on 8 December 1941 and remained occupied until Japan's surrender in 1945; multiple war crimes were dedicated during that time.

A side-effect of the Japanese invasion of Shanghai was the Shanghai Ghetto. Japanese consul to Kaunas, Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara issued thousands of visas to Jewish refugees who were escaping the Nazi's Final Solution to the Jewish Question. They traveled from Keidan, Lithuania across Russia by railroad to the Vladivostok from where they traveled by ship to Kobe, Japan. Their stay in Kobe was short as the Japanese government transferred them to Shanghai by November 1941. Other Jewish refugees found haven in Shanghai, not through Sugihara, but came on ships from Italy. The refugees from Europe were interned into a cramped ghetto in the Hongkou District, and after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, even the Iraqi Jews who had been living in Shanghai from before the outbreak of WWII were interned. Among the refugees in the Shanghai Ghetto was the Mirrer Yeshiva, including its students and faculty. On 3 September 1945, the Chinese Army liberated the Ghetto and most of the Jews left over the next few years. By 1957, there were only one hundred Jews remaining in Shanghai.