Like Beijing, Shanghai is both a city and a municipality, covering 6,000 square km at the mouth of the Yangtze River. At over 15 million people, Shanghai is China’s largest city, and the 8th largest in the world. Today Shanghai is one of the biggest financial centers in China, behind Hong Kong, and one of the busiest ports in the world, behind Singapore and Hong Kong.

Though there has been a town in the area since the 11th century, and though a wall was built around the city in the 16th century, Shanghai is not considered a city of much history in China. Unlike cities like Beijing and Nanjing, Shanghai has never been a center of government and was not until recently a center of culture. Thus, by comparison its historical landmarks are few.

Shanghai surged in importance in the mid-19th century, and quickly became one of the biggest financial centers in all of Asia. Its doors were opened to foreign trade in 1842, and shortly there-after a number of foreign powers established extra-territorial settlements there, including Britain, America, France and Japan. During the World Wars, Shanghai became a place of refuge for Russians fleeing the 1917 revolution and Jews fleeing Europe. Many of the foreign firms and many of the foreigners in Shanghai left the city in 1949 after the People’s Liberation Army entered the city. But they left their mark, both architecturally and on Shanghainese culture.

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