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Shanghai is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowing through it. The population of the city proper is the second largest in the world with around 24.87 million inhabitants in 2023, while the urban area is the most populous in China, with 29.87 million residents. As of 2022, the Greater Shanghai metropolitan area was estimated to produce a gross metropolitan product (nominal) of nearly 13 trillion Renminbi ($1.9 trillion). Shanghai is one of the world's major centers for finance, business and economics, research, science and technology, manufacturing, transportation, tourism, and culture. The Port of Shanghai is the world's busiest container port.
Originally a fishing village and market town, Shanghai grew to global prominence in the 19th century due to domestic and foreign trade and its favorable port location. The city was one of five treaty ports forced to open to trade with the Europeans after the First Opium War, with the Shanghai International Settlement and French Concession subsequently established. The city became a primary commercial and financial hub of Asia in the 1930s. During the Second World War, it was the site of the Battle of Shanghai. This was followed by the Chinese Civil War with the Communists taking over the city and most of the mainland. During the Cold War, trade was mostly limited to other socialist countries in the Eastern Bloc, causing the city's global influence to decline.
Economic reforms supported by Deng Xiaoping led to extensive redevelopment by the 1990s, particularly in the Pudong New Area, spurring the return of finance and foreign investment. The city has re-emerged as a hub for international trade and finance. It is the home of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the largest stock exchange in the Asia-Pacific by market capitalization and the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone, the first free-trade zone in mainland China. It is ranked eighth globally on the Global Financial Centres Index. Shanghai has been classified as an Alpha+ (Global city) city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. As of 2024, it is home to 13 companies of the Fortune Global 500—the fourth-highest number of any city. The city is also a major global center for research and development and home to numerous Double First-Class Universities, including Fudan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The Shanghai Metro, first opened in 1993, is the largest metro network in the world by route length.
Shanghai has been described as a global finance and innovation hub, and it is one of the ten biggest economic hubs in the world. Featuring several architectural styles such as Art Deco and shikumen, the city contains the Lujiazui skyline, museums and historic buildings, including the City God Temple, Yu Garden, the China Pavilion and buildings along the Bund. Shanghai is known for its Shanghai cuisine, Shanghainese, and cosmopolitan culture. It ranks sixth in the list of cities with the most skyscrapers.
The two Chinese characters in the city's name are labels=no (/''zaon'', "upon") and labels=no (/''hé'', "sea"), together meaning "On the Sea". The earliest occurrence of this name is the 11th-century [[Song dynasty]], when there was a river confluence and a town with this name in the area. Others contend that the city is referenced in historical records dating back 2150 years, and that its ancient name, "Hu", suggests it was a fishing village. In 1280 it was renamed "Shanghai", which translates to "Above the Sea". The name's interpretation was disputed, but Chinese historians concluded that during the [[Tang dynasty]], the area of modern-day Shanghai was under sea level, so the land appeared to be "on the sea".Danielson, Eric N., ''Shanghai and the Yangzi Delta'', 2004, pp. 8–9.
Shanghai is officially abbreviated labels=no (/ wu) in Chinese language, a contraction of labels=no (/ wu-doq, "Harpoon Ditch"), a 4th- or Jin name for the mouth of Suzhou Creek when it was the main conduit into the ocean. This character appears on motor vehicle license plates issued in the municipality.
labels=no ( Módū/ mó-tu, "monster/fiend/magical city"), is a contemporary nickname for Shanghai. The name was first mentioned in Mato (1924) by Japanese novelist Shōfu Muramatsu. The city has various English nicknames including the "New York of China", in reference to its status as a cosmopolitan megalopolis and financial hub, the "Pearl of the Orient", and the "Paris of the East".
Shanghai's first city wall was built in 1554 to protect the town from raids by Wokou. It was high and in circumference. A City God Temple was built in 1602 during the Wanli Emperor reign. This honor was usually reserved for prefectural capitals and not normally given to a county seat like Shanghai. Scholars theorized that this reflected the town's economic importance.Danielson, Eric N., Shanghai and the Yangzi Delta, 2004, p.10.
During the Qing dynasty, two central government policy changes caused Shanghai to become one of the most important seaports in the Yangtze Delta region. The first was in 1684, when the Kangxi Emperor reversed the 1525 prohibition on oceangoing vessels. In 1732, the Qianlong Emperor moved the customs office for Jiangsu province (; see Customs House, Shanghai) from Songjiang to Shanghai, and gave Shanghai exclusive control over customs collections for Jiangsu's foreign trade. Shanghai became the major trade port for the lower Yangtze region by 1735, despite being at the lowest administrative level in the political hierarchy.Danielson, Eric N., Shanghai and the Yangtze Delta, 2004, pp.10–11.
In the 19th century, international attention and recognition of its economic and trade potential at the Yangtze grew. British forces occupied the city during the First Opium War.Rait, Robert S. (1903). The Life and Campaigns of Hugh, First Viscount Gough, Field-Marshal . Volume 1. p. 267–268 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 between 1843 and 1844, forced Chinese concession to European and American desires for visitation and trade in China. Britain, France, and the United States established a presence outside the walled city of Shanghai, which remained under the direct administration of the Chinese.
The Chinese-held Old City of Shanghai fell to rebels from the Small Swords Society in 1853, but was regained by the Qing government in February 1855.Scarne, John. Twelve years in China . Edinburgh: Constable, 1860: 187–209. 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.Williams, S. Wells. The Middle Kingdom: A Survey of the Geography, Government, Literature, Social Life, Arts, and History of the Chinese Empire and its Inhabitants, Vol. 1, p. 107. Scribner (New York), 1904. In 1863, the British settlement south of Suzhou Creek (northern Huangpu District) and the American settlement to the north (southern Hongkou District) joined to form the Shanghai International Settlement. The French opted out of the Shanghai Municipal Council and maintained its own concession at the city's south and southwest. The First Sino-Japanese War concluded with the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, which elevated Japan as another foreign power in Shanghai. Japan built the first factories in Shanghai, which were copied by other foreign powers. This international activity gave Shanghai the nickname "the Great Athens of China".Gordon Cumming, C. F. (Constance Frederica), "The inventor of the numeral-type for China by the use of which illiterate Chinese both blind and sighted can very quickly be taught to read and write fluently", London: Downey, 1899, archive.org
The golden age of Shanghai began with its elevation to municipality after it was separated from Jiangsu on 7 July 1927. This new Chinese municipality was , and included the districts of Baoshan, Yangpu District, Zhabei, Nanshi, and Pudong. Headed by a Chinese mayor and municipal council, the city's government implemented the Greater Shanghai Plan to create a new city center in Jiangwan town of Yangpu district, outside the boundaries of the foreign concessions.Danielson, Eric N., Shanghai and the Yangzi Delta, 2004, p. 34. The city became a commercial and financial hub of the Asia-Pacific region in the 1930s. During the ensuing decades, citizens of many countries immigrated to Shanghai; those who stayed for long periods called themselves "". In the 1920s and 1930s, almost 20,000 White Movement 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, approximately 30,000 Jewish refugees from Europe arrived in the city.
Many Jewish people arrived in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation period. A vice-consul for Japan in Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara, issued thousands of visas to Jewish refugees escaping the Holocaust, and the Japanese government transferred many of them to Shanghai by November 1941. Other Jewish refugees traveled from Italy. The refugees from Europe were interned in the Shanghai Ghetto in Hongkou District after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. After the surrender of Japan, the Chinese Army liberated the Ghetto, and most of the Jews left over the next few years.
After the war, Shanghai's economy was restored. From 1949 to 1952, the city's agricultural and industrial output increased by 51.5% and 94.2%, respectively. As the industrial center of China with the most skilled industrial workers, Shanghai became a center for radical leftism during the 1950s and 1960s. Shanghai: transformation and modernization under China's open policy. By Yue-man Yeung, Sung Yun-wing, page 66 , Chinese University Press, 1996 During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), Shanghai's society was severely damaged. The majority of the workers in the Shanghai branch of the People's Bank of China were Red Guards, and they formed a group called the Anti-Economy Liaison Headquarters within the branch.Zongyuan Zoe Liu (2025). 9780674271913, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674271913 The Anti-Economy Liaison Headquarters dismantled economic organizations in Shanghai, investigated bank withdrawals, and disrupted regular bank service in the city. Despite the disruptions of the Cultural Revolution, Shanghai maintained economic production with a positive annual growth rate.
In 1990, Deng Xiaoping permitted Shanghai to initiate economic reforms, which reintroduced foreign capital to the city and developed the Pudong district, resulting in the birth of Lujiazui. That year, the China's central government designated Shanghai as the "Dragon Head" of economic reform. In 2022 Shanghai experienced a large outbreak of COVID-19 cases and the Chinese government locked down the entire city on 5 April. This resulted in widespread food shortages across the city as food-supply chains were severely disrupted. These restrictions were lifted on 1 June.
The municipality's northernmost point is on Chongming Island, the second-largest island in mainland China after its expansion during the 20th century. "Chongming Island" in the Encyclopedia of Shanghai, p. 52. Shanghai Scientific & Technical Publishers (Shanghai), 2010. Hosted by the Municipality of Shanghai.
Shanghai is located on an alluvial plain and the vast majority of its land area is flat, with an average elevation of . Tidal flat ecosystems exist around the estuary, but they have been reclaimed for agricultural purposes. The city's few hills, such as Sheshan Hill, lie to the southwest; its highest point is the peak of Dajinshan Island () in Hangzhou Bay. Shanghai has rivers, canals, streams, and lakes, and it is known for its rich water resources as part of the Lake Tai drainage basin.
Downtown Shanghai is bisected by the Huangpu River, a man-made tributary of the Yangtze created by order of Lord Chunshen during the Warring States period. The historic center of the city was located on the west bank of the Huangpu (Puxi), near the mouth of Suzhou Creek, connecting it with Lake Tai and the Grand Canal. The central financial district, Lujiazui, was established on the east bank of the Huangpu (Pudong). Along Shanghai's eastern shore, the destruction of local wetlands due to the construction of Pudong International Airport has been partially offset by the protection and expansion of a nearby shoal, Jiuduansha, as a nature preserve. "Fourth Island Wetland Emerging", pp. 1–2. Shanghai Daily. 8 December 2009. Hosted at China.org.
The most pleasant seasons are generally spring, although changeable and often rainy, and autumn, which is usually sunny and dry. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 28% in June to 46% in August, the city receives 1,754 hours of bright sunshine annually. According to China's seasonal division standard, from 2001 to 2025, Shanghai enters spring on 9 March, summer on 15 May, autumn on 5 October, and winter on 4 December. The average temperature for the three weeks from 19 July to 8 August is above . Extremes since 1951 have ranged from on 31 January 1977 (unofficial record of was set on 19 January 1893) to on 21 July 2017 and 13 July 2022 at a weather station in Xujiahui. It also has as the highest ever daily minimum temperature at Xujiahui on 10 August 2025.
Shanghai's construction boom during the 1920s and 1930s caused the city to have several Art Deco buildings. László Hudec, a Hungarian-Slovak who lived in the city between 1918 and 1947, designed Art Deco buildings such as the Park Hotel, the Grand Cinema, and the Paramount. Other prominent Art Deco-style architects are Clement Palmer and Arthur Turner, who designed the Peace Hotel, the Metropole Hotel, and the Broadway Mansions; and Austrian architect C.H. Gonda, who designed the Capitol Theatre. One common architectural element is the shikumen (石库门, "stone storage door") residence, typically two- or three-story gray brick houses with the front yard protected by a heavy wooden door in a stylistic stone arch. Each residence is connected and arranged in straight alleys, known as longtang (弄堂). Shanghai also has Soviet Union neoclassical architecture or Stalinist architecture: most were erected between the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 and the Sino-Soviet Split in the late 1960s when Soviet personnel came to China to aid in the development of a communist state. An example of Soviet neoclassical architecture in Shanghai is the Shanghai Exhibition Center.
Shanghai has making it the fifth city in the world with the most skyscrapers. Some of Shanghai's skyscrappers include the Jin Mao Tower, the Shanghai World Financial Center, and the Shanghai Tower, which was completed in 2015 and is currently the tallest building in China and the third tallest in the world. The Oriental Pearl Tower, at , is located nearby at the northern tip of Lujiazui. Many areas in the former foreign concessions are well-preserved. Despite rampant redevelopment, the Old City retains traditional architecture and designs, such as the Yu Garden, an elaborate Jiangnan style garden.
| + Current leaders of the Shanghai Municipal Government |
Like all governing institutions in mainland China, Shanghai has a parallel party-government system, in which the CCP Committee Secretary, officially termed the Chinese Communist Party Shanghai Municipal Committee Secretary, outranks the Mayor. The CCP committee acts as the top policy-formulation body, and typically composed of 12 members (including the secretary); it has control over the Shanghai Municipal People's Government.
Political power in Shanghai has been a stepping stone to higher positions in the central government. Since Jiang Zemin became the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in June 1989, several former Shanghai party secretaries and deputy party secretaries were elevated to the Politburo Standing Committee, the de facto highest decision-making body in China. Officials with ties to the Shanghai administration collectively form a powerful faction in the central government known as the Shanghai Clique, which has often been viewed as competing against the rival Youth League Faction over personnel appointments and policy decisions.
When the Shanghai Municipal People's Government was founded in 1949, the land area governed was , largely located within the present-day Outer Ring Expressway. In 1958, ten counties were reassigned under Shanghai from Jiangsu. District reorganizations saw several counties in the suburbs become districts between 1988 and 2015, and Chongming was the last county to be retitled as a district in 2015.
Shanghai also administers several enclaves in Jiangsu and Anhui provinces. Local residents hold Shanghai Hukou and enjoy benefits identical to Shanghai residents.
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| US$663.9 billion |
| US$356.0 billion |
| US$233.5 billion |
| US$221.0 billion |
| US$169.2 billion |
| US$142.0 billion |
| US$73.6 billion |
| US$40.7 billion |
| US$20.0 billion |
| US$1.927 trillion |
The city is a global center for finance and innovation, and a national center for commerce, trade, and transportation, with the world's busiest container port—the Port of Shanghai. As of 2022, the Greater Shanghai metropolitan area, which includes Suzhou, Wuxi, Nantong, Ningbo, Jiaxing, Zhoushan, and Huzhou, was estimated to produce a gross metropolitan product (nominal) of nearly 13 trillion Renminbi ($1.9 trillion). As of 2020, the economy of Shanghai was estimated to be $1 trillion (PPP), ranking the most productive metro area of China and among the top ten largest metropolitan economies in the world. Shanghai's six largest industries—retail, finance, IT, real estate, machine industry, and automotive manufacturing—comprise about half the city's GDP.
, Shanghai had a GDP of ($757 billion in nominal; $1.52 trillion in PPP) that makes up 4% of China's GDP, and a GDP per capita of ( in nominal; in PPP). In 2022, the average annual disposable income of Shanghai's residents was () per capita, while the average annual salary of people employed in urban units in Shanghai was (), making it one of the wealthiest cities in China, but also the most expensive city in mainland China to live in according to a 2023 study by the Economist Intelligence Unit. According to Julius Baer's Global Wealth and Lifestyle Report, Shanghai was the most expensive city in the world for living a luxurious lifestyle in 2021.
In 2023, the city's imports and exports reached CN¥7.73 trillion (US$1.07 trillion), accounting for 18.5% of the national total.
Shanghai was the 5th wealthiest city in the world in 2021, with a total wealth amounts to $1.8 trillion, and in 2022 was ranked fifth-highest in the number of billionaires by Forbes. Shanghai's nominal GDP was projected to reach US$1.3 trillion in 2035 (ranking first in China), making it one of the world's top 5 major cities in terms of GRP according to a study by Oxford Economics. As of August 2024, Shanghai ranked 4th in the world and 2nd in Greater China (after Beijing) by the largest number of the Fortune Global 500 companies.
| + Economy of Shanghai since the Chinese economic reform | ||||||||||||||||
| 0.027 | 0.031 | 0.035 | 0.049 | 0.078 | 0.152 | 0.298 | 0.481 | 0.676 | 1.072 | 1.744 | 2.226 | 2.818 | 3.063 | 3.268 | 3.816 | |
| 2.85 | 2.73 | 2.95 | 3.96 | 5.91 | 11.06 | 20.81 | 30.31 | 38.88 | 55.62 | 77.28 | 92.85 | 116.58 | 126.63 | 134.83 | 157.14 | |
| 0.64 | 2.18 | 4.28 | 8.16 | 11.72 | 14.87 | 20.67 | 31.84 | 43.85 | 57.69 | 62.60 | 64.18 (total) | 69.44 (total) | ||||
| 0.40 | 1.67 | 4.85 | 5.57 | 6.66 | 9.21 | 13.75 | 19.21 | 25.52 | 27.82 |
In the last two decades, Shanghai has been one of the fastest-developing cities in the world; it has recorded double-digit GDP growth in almost every year between 1992 and 2008, before the 2008 financial crisis.
, the Shanghai Stock Exchange had a market capitalization of , making it the largest stock exchange in China and the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world. In 2009, the trading volume of six key commodities—including rubber, copper, and zinc—on the Shanghai Futures Exchange all ranked first globally. By the end of 2017, Shanghai had 1,491 financial institutions, of which 251 were foreign-invested.
According to the Shanghai Municipal Statistics Bureau, about 157,900 residents in Shanghai are foreigners, including 28,900 Japanese, 21,900 Americans, and 20,800 Koreans. The actual number of foreign citizens in the city is probably much higher. Shanghai is also a domestic immigration city—40.3% (9.8 million) of the city's residents are from other regions of China.
Shanghai has a life expectancy of 83.18 years for the city's registered population, the highest life expectancy of all cities in mainland China. This has also caused the city to experience population aging—in 2021, 17.4% (4.3 million) of the city's registered population was aged 65 or above. In 2017, the Chinese government implemented population controls for Shanghai, resulting in a population decline of 10,000 people by the end of the year.
Buddhism, in its Chinese Buddhism, has had a presence in Shanghai since the Three Kingdoms period, during which the Longhua Temple—the largest temple in Shanghai—and the Jing'an Temple were founded. , Buddhism in Shanghai had 114 temples, 1,182 clergical staff, and 453,300 registered followers. The religion also has its own college, the , and its own press, . Catholicism was brought into Shanghai in 1608 by Italian missionary Lazzaro Cattaneo. The Apostolic Vicariate of Shanghai was erected in 1933, and was further elevated to the Diocese of Shanghai in 1946. The St. Ignatius Cathedral in Xujiahui is the largest Catholic church in the city. Shanghai has the highest concentration of urban Catholics in China. Other forms of Christianity in Shanghai include Eastern Orthodox minorities and, since 1996, registered Christian Protestant churches. The Protestant All Saints Church in Huangpu was built in 1925 and features a Neo-Romanesque tower.
Prominent Jewish families immigrated to Shanghai when the Treaty of Nanking opened the city to Western populations. During World War II, thousands of Jews emigrated to Shanghai to flee Nazi Germany. They lived in a designated area called the Shanghai Ghetto and formed a community centered on the Ohel Moishe Synagogue, (now the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum). In 1939, Horace Kadoorie, the head of the powerful philanthropic Sephardic Jewish family in Shanghai, founded the Shanghai Jewish Youth Association to support Jewish refugees through English education so they would be prepared to emigrate from Shanghai.
Islam came into Shanghai during the Yuan dynasty. The city's first mosque, Songjiang Mosque, was built during the Zhizheng (至正) era under Emperor Huizong (reigned 1333 – 1368). Shanghai's Muslim population increased in the 19th and early 20th centuries (when the city was a treaty port), during which time many mosques—including the Xiaotaoyuan Mosque, the Huxi Mosque, and the Pudong Mosque—were built. The Shanghai Islamic Association is located in the Xiaotaoyuan Mosque in Huangpu. According to the 2010 census of China, there are an estimated 85,000 Muslims in Shanghai.
Shanghai has several folk religious temples, including the City God Temple at the heart of the Old City, the Dajing Ge Pavilion dedicated to the Three Kingdoms general Guan Yu, the Confucian Temple of Shanghai, and a major Taoist center where the Shanghai Taoist Association locates.
Before its expansion, the language spoken in Shanghai was not as prominent as those spoken around Jiaxing and later Suzhou, and was known as "the local tongue" (本地閑話), a name which is now used in suburbs only. In the late 19th century, downtown Shanghainese (市區閑話 or simply 上海閑話) appeared, undergoing rapid changes and replacing Suzhounese as the prestige dialect of the Yangtze River Delta region. At the time, most immigration into the city came from the two adjacent provinces, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the local dialects of which had the greatest influence on Shanghainese. After 1949, Putonghua (Standard Mandarin) also had an impact on Shanghainese because it was promoted by the government. Since the 1990s, many migrants outside of the Wu-speaking region come to Shanghai for education and jobs; they often cannot speak the local language and use Putonghua (Mandarin) as a lingua franca. Because Putonghua and English were more favored, Shanghainese began to decline, and fluency among young speakers weakened. In recent years, there have been movements within the city to promote the local language and protect it from fading out.
Shanghai has 15 universities listed in 147 Double First-Class Universities, ranking second nationwide among Chinese cities (after Beijing). According to the U.S. News & World Report Best Global University Ranking for 2025–26, Shanghai had the third highest concentration of universities among all major cities in the world included in the ranking, totaling 22, with three in the top 125 and six in the global top 500. In the 2025 Academic Ranking of World Universities, Shanghai had two in the top 40, three in the top 150 and nine in the top 500. Some of these universities were selected as "985 universities" or "211 universities" since the 90s by the Chinese government to build world-class universities.
Shanghai has two members (Fudan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University) in the C9 League, an alliance of elite Chinese universities offering comprehensive and leading education. These two universities are consistently ranked in the Asia top 10. As of 2025, Fudan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University were ranked in the global top 40 research comprehensive universities based on aggregate performance from four widely observed university rankings (THE+ARWU+QS+US News).
The other two members of Project 985, Tongji University and East China Normal University, are also based in Shanghai and internationally; they were ranked they ranked 150–175th globally by the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings where . Shanghai University of Sport is also based in the city, which consistently ranks the best in China among universities specialized in sports, and as of 2024 ranks #1 in Asia and #29 globally according to the "Global Ranking of Sport Science Schools and Departments" released by Shanghai Ranking.
The city has many , such as the Shanghai University–University of Technology Sydney Business School since 1994, the University of Michigan–Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute since 2006, and New York University Shanghai—the first China–U.S. joint venture university—since 2012. In 2013, the Shanghai Municipality and the Chinese Academy of Sciences founded the ShanghaiTech University in the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Pudong.Rouhi, Maureen (19 January 2015). "ShanghaiTech Aims To Raise The Bar For Higher Education In China" . Chemical & Engineering News. Retrieved 19 November 2015. The city is also a seat of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, China's oldest think tank for the humanities and social sciences.
By the end of 2023, the city also had a total of 49 institutions for postgraduate education, 900 secondary schools, 70 vocational schools, 664 primary schools, and 31 special education schools. Five years of primary education and four years of junior secondary education are free, with a gross enrollment ratio of over 99.9%. In 2009 and 2012, 15-year-old students from Shanghai ranked first in every subject (math, reading, and science) in the Program for International Student Assessment. The consecutive three-year senior secondary education is priced and uses the Senior High School Entrance Examination ( Zhongkao) as a selection process, with a gross enrollment ratio of 98%. Shanghai High School, No. 2 High School Attached to East China Normal University, High School Affiliated to Fudan University, and High School Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University—are termed "The Four Schools" ("四校") of Shanghai and highlighted as having the best teaching quality in the city.
Shanghai's rapid transit system, the Shanghai Metro, incorporates subway and light metro lines and extends to each core urban district as well as neighboring suburban districts. , there are 19 metro lines (excluding the Shanghai maglev train and Jinshan railway), 508 stations, and of lines in operation, making it the longest network in the world. On 8 March 2019, it set the city's daily metro ridership record with 13.3 million. Opened in 2004, the Shanghai maglev train is the first and the fastest commercial high-speed maglev in the world, with a maximum operation speed of .
The first tram line in Shanghai was opened in 1908. By 1925, there were 328 tramcars and 14 routes operated by Chinese, French, and British companies collaboratively, all of which were nationalized in 1949. Since the 1960s, tram lines were either dismantled or replaced by trolleybus or motorbus lines; the last tram line was demolished in 1975. Shanghai reintroduced trams in 2010 with the rubber-tyred Zhangjiang Tram. In 2018, the steel wheeled Songjiang Tram started operating in Songjiang District.
Shanghai has the world's most extensive bus network, including the world's oldest continuously operating trolleybus system, with 1,575 lines covering a total length of by 2019. The system is operated by multiple companies. As of 2024, 30,900 taxis were in operation in Shanghai, which carried 134 million passengers that year.
Bicycle lanes are common in Shanghai, separating non-motorized traffic from car traffic on most surface streets. However, bicycles and motorcycles are banned on expressways and some main roads. Cycling has increased in popularity due to the emergence of dockless, app-based bicycle-sharing systems, such as Mobike, Hello, and . , bicycle-sharing systems had an average of 1.15 million daily riders within the city.
Private car ownership in Shanghai is rapidly increasing: in 2019, there were 3.40 million private cars in the city, a 12.5% increase from 2018. New private cars cannot be driven without a license plate, which are sold in monthly license plate auctions. Around 9,500 license plates are auctioned each month, and the average price was about () in 2019. This policy was introduced to limit the growth of automobile traffic and alleviate congestion.
Built in 1876, the Woosung Road was the first railway in Shanghai and the first railway in operation in China By 1909, Shanghai–Nanjing railway and Shanghai–Hangzhou railway were in service. , the two railways have been integrated into two main railways in China: Beijing–Shanghai railway and Shanghai–Kunming railway, respectively.
Shanghai has four high-speed railways (HSRs): Beijing–Shanghai HSR (overlaps with Shanghai–Wuhan–Chengdu passenger railway), Shanghai–Nanjing intercity railway, Shanghai–Kunming HSR, and Shanghai–Nantong railway. One HSR is under construction: Shanghai–Suzhou–Huzhou HSR.
Shanghai also has four commuter railways: Pudong railway (although passenger service was suspended in 2015) and Jinshan railway operated by China Railway, and Line 16 and Line 17 operated by Shanghai Metro. , four additional lines—Chongming line, Jiamin line, Airport link line and Lianggang Express line—are under construction.
Since its opening, the Port of Shanghai has become the largest port in China. Yangshan Port was built in 2005 because the river was unsuitable for docking large container ships. The port is connected with the mainland through the long Donghai Bridge. In 2010, it became world's busiest container port with an annual TEU transportation of 42 million in 2018. One Hundred Ports 2019 Lloyd's List，2019 The Port of Shanghai also handled 259 cruises and 1.89 million passengers in 2019. Although the port is run by the Shanghai International Port Group under the government of Shanghai, it administratively belongs to Shengsi County, Zhejiang. Shanghai is part of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road that runs from the Chinese coast to the northern Italian hub of Trieste.Wolf D. Hartmann, Wolfgang Maennig, Run Wang: Chinas neue Seidenstraße. (2017).Jean-Marc F. Blanchard "China's Maritime Silk Road Initiative and South Asia" (2019).
Haipai cuisine is a Western-influenced cooking style that originated in Shanghai. It uses elements from French, British, Russian, German, and Italian cuisines and adapted them for local taste preferences and to incorporate local ingredients. Haipai cuisine dishes include Shanghai-style borscht (罗宋汤, "Russian soup"), crispy pork cutlets, and Shanghai salad, derived from Olivier salad. Both Benbang and Haipai cuisine use varoius seafoods including freshwater fish, shrimp, and crab.
Since 2001, Shanghai has held Shanghai Fashion Week each April and October. The main venue is in Fuxing Park, and the opening and closing ceremonies are held in the Shanghai Fashion Center. The April session is also part of the one-month Shanghai International Fashion Culture Festival.
Drama appeared in Mission school in Shanghai in the late 19th century, mainly performed in English. Scandals in Officialdom (s=官场丑史), staged in 1899, was one of the earliest-recorded plays. In 1907, Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly (s=黑奴吁天录) was performed at the .
Shanghai is the birthplace of Chinese cinema; China's first short film, The Difficult Couple (1913), and the country's first fictional feature film, An Orphan Rescues His Grandfather (孤儿救祖记, 1923) were both produced in the city. Shanghai's film industry grew during the early 1930s, generating stars such as Hu Die, Ruan Lingyu, Zhou Xuan, Jin Yan, and Zhao Dan. The exile of Shanghainese filmmakers and actors during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Communist revolution contributed to the development of the Hong Kong film industry. Shanghai Television Festival, founded in 1986, is the earliest international TV festival founded in China. The Shanghai International Film Festival was founded in 1993 and is one of the nine major international film festivals in the A category.
The Shanghai Cricket Club dates back to 1858, when the first recorded cricket match was played between a team of Royal Navy officers and a Shanghai 11. The Shanghai cricket team played various international matches between 1866 and 1948 as China's de facto China national cricket team. After going dormant in 1949 after the founding of the PRC, the club was re-established in 1994 by expatriates living in the city and has since grown to over 300 members.
Shanghai hosts several international sports events. Since 2004, it has hosted the Chinese Grand Prix, a round of the Formula One, at the Shanghai International Circuit. The city also hosts the Shanghai Masters tennis tournament, which is part of ATP World Tour Masters 1000, as well as golf tournaments including the BMW Masters and WGC-HSBC Champions. In 2023, Shanghai hosted 118 sports events, with 190,000 participants and 1.29 million spectators, driving a consumption of CN¥3.713 billion (US$510.83 million).
The People's Square park, located in the heart of downtown Shanghai, is known for its proximity to other major landmarks in the city. Fuxing Park, located in the former French Concession, features formal French-style gardens and is surrounded by high-end bars and cafes. Lu Xun Park in Hongkou is named after writer Lu Xun, whose tomb is located within the park. Zhongshan Park, in western central Shanghai, contains a monument of Chopin, the tallest statue dedicated to the composer in the world. The park features Cherry blossom and peony gardens and a 150-year-old platanus.
Shanghai Botanical Garden is located southwest of the city center and established in 1978. In 2011, the largest botanical garden in Shanghai—Shanghai Chen Shan Botanical Garden—opened in Songjiang District. The Shanghai Disney Resort opened in 2016, featuring a castle that is the biggest among Disney's resorts.
In 2023, the Air Quality Index (AQI) of Shanghai reached a rate of 87.7%, a 0.6% increase compared to the previous year. The annual average concentration of inhalable particulate matter (PM10) was 48 microgrammes per cubic meter, while the annual average concentration of fine particulate matter was 28 microgrammes per cubic meter.
On 1 July 2019, Shanghai adopted a new garbage-classification system that sorts waste into categories such as residual, kitchen, recyclable, and hazardous. The wastes are collected by separate vehicles and sent to incineration plants, , recycling centers, and hazardous-waste-disposal facilities, respectively.
covers newspapers, publishers, broadcast, television, and the Internet, with some media having influence over the country. Concerning foreign publications in Shanghai, Hartmut Walravens of the IFLA Newspapers Section said that when the Japanese controlled Shanghai in the 1940s "it was very difficult to publish good papers – one either had to concentrate on emigration problems, or cooperate like the ''Chronicle''."
, newspapers publishing in Shanghai include:
Newspapers formerly published in Shanghai include:
The city's main broadcaster is Shanghai Media Group.
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