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China’s most populous city, Shanghai has always had a unique status within the country. In the 1930s, Shanghai became famous as an adventurous, cosmopolitan melting pot, with control of different zones of the city given to outside powers such as France, Britain, and the United States. When invasion by Japan in World War II was followed by Communist revolution, Shanghai lost this glamorous reputation.

However, economic reforms instituted here in the early 1990s have given the city a new vitality, and wealth has exploded. Alongside the traditional Chinese architecture, colonial buildings and Art Deco relics of the 1930s golden age, a new, stylish, high-tech look has sprung up; Hollywood science fiction films have even been shot on location here, present-day Shanghai passing for the city of the future. Perhaps the biggest tourist draw is the Bund, the waterfront of the former British and American-controlled “International Settlement,” where the Shanghai of the ’30s lives on in all its Art Deco glory. Other key sites include Yuyuan Garden, one of the country’s finest gardens, dating to the Ming Dynasty, and Xintiandi, a restored pedestrian enclave that now features upscale shopping.

Language: Mandarin     Currency: Yuan (CNY)