Come and enjoy My Virtual Shanghai with all its beauty and mystery. My Virtual Shanghai will provide you with information about Shanghai aswell as helping on your journey to this majestic city.

Shanghai, Hu for short, is situated on the estuary of Yangtze River of China. It is the largest industrial city in China. Covering an area of 5,800 square kilometers (2,239 square miles), Shanghai has a population of 18.7 million, including 2 million floating population.

Originally, Shanghai was a seaside fishing village and in time its gradual development led to it being granted County status on August 19th, 1291 during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). Hence this day became the anniversary of the founding of Shanghai. Today's Shanghai is a multi-cultural metropolis with both modern and traditional Chinese features. Bubbling Shanghai shows off every aspect of her unique glamour.

Serving as the largest base of Chinese industrial technology, the important seaport and China's largest commercial and financial center, shanghai draws the attention of the whole world.

Modern Shanghai has three key areas of interest to the visitor. These comprise Sightseeing, Business and Shopping centered upon People's Square and along the Huangpu River. The city's Cultural Center with its public activities and community facilities and finally the main Entertainment and Holiday Tourism area is located at Mt. Sheshan, Chongming Island, Dingshan Lake and Shenshuigang Area.

Known as "the Oriental Paris", Shanghai is a shopper's paradise. One of the musts for tourists is Nanjing Road. Huaihai Road intrigues those with modern and fashionable tastes, while Sichuan North Road meets the demands of ordinary folk. In addition, Xujiahui Shopping Center, Yuyuan Shopping City, Jiali Sleepless City are thriving and popular destinations for those who are seeking to buy something special as a memento of their visit.

A wide variety of cuisines can be found in the City and today Shanghai offers a plethora of culinary delights focusing on the traditions of Beijing, Yangzhou, Sichuan, Guangzhou as well as its own local dishes. Shanghai's restaurants are among the finest to be found in China and they welcome diners from anywhere at any time.

Shanghai (Chinese: ??; pinyin: Shànghai (help·info); Wu (Long-short): Zånhae; Shanghainese (IPA): [z?~'he]), situated on the banks of the Yangtze River Delta in East China, is the largest city of the People's Republic of China and the ninth largest in the world. Widely regarded as the citadel of China's modern economy, the city also serves as one of the nation's most important cultural, commercial, financial, industrial and communications centers. Administratively, Shanghai is a municipality of the People's Republic of China that has province-level status. Shanghai is also one of the world's busiest ports, and became the largest cargo port in the world in 2005.[1] Originally a sleepy fishing town, Shanghai became China's most important city by the twentieth century and was the center of popular culture, intellectual discourse and political intrigue during the Republic of China. Shanghai once became the third largest financial center in the world, ranking after New York City and London, and the largest commercial city in the Far East in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. After the communist takeover in 1949, Shanghai languished under heavy central government taxation and cessation of foreign investment, with many of its supposedly "bourgeois" elements purged. Following the central government's authorization of market-economic redevelopment of Shanghai in 1992, Shanghai has now surpassed early-starters Shenzhen and Guangzhou, and has since led China's economic growth. Some challenges remain for Shanghai at the beginning of the 21st century, as the city struggles to cope with increased worker migration and a huge wealth gap. Despite these challenges, Shanghai's skyscrapers and modern lifestyle are often seen as representing China's recent economic development.

Because of Shanghai's status as the cultural and economic center of East Asia for the first half of the twentieth century, it is popularly seen as the birthplace of everything considered modern in China. It was in Shanghai, for example, that the first motor car was driven and the first train tracks and modern sewers were laid. It was also the intellectual battleground between socialist writers who concentrated on critical realism (pioneered by Lu Xun and Mao Dun) and the more "bourgeois", more romantically and aesthetically inclined writers (such as Shi Zhecun, Shao Xunmei, Ye Lingfeng, Eileen Chang). Two women wear Shanghai-styled qipao while playing golf in this 1930s Shanghai advertisement.Besides literature, Shanghai was also the birthplace of Chinese cinema & theater. China’s first short film, The Difficult Couple (Nanfu Nanqi, 1913), and the country’s first fictional feature film, Orphan Rescues Grandfather (Gu'er jiu zuji, 1923) were both produced in Shanghai. These two films were very influential, and established Shanghai as the center of Chinese film-making. Shanghai’s film industry went on to blossom during the early Thirties, generating Marilyn Monroe-like stars such as Zhou Xuan. Another film star, Jiang Qing, went on to become Madame Mao Zedong. The talent and passion of Shanghainese filmmakers following World War II and the Communist Revolution contributed enormously to the development of the Hong Kong film industry. Much of Shanghainese popular culture ("Shanghainese Pops") were transferred to Hong Kong by the numerous Shanghainese emigrants and refugees after the Communist Revolution. The movie In the Mood for Love (Huayang nianhua) directed by Wong Kar-wai (a native Shanghainese himself) depicts one slice of the displaced Shanghainese community in Hong Kong and the nostalgia for that era, featuring 1940s music by Zhou Xuan