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Shanghai ( Chinese: 上海, pinyin: shàng hǎi; Shanghainese IPA: /zɑ̃ hɛ/) is China's largest city and is situated on the banks of the Chang Jiang delta. In Chinese, Shanghai's abbreviations are Hù (滬 or 沪) and Shen (申). The name Shanghai literally means "on the sea" or "onto the sea." Administratively, Shanghai is one of 4 municipalities of the People's Republic of China, which have provincial-level status.
| Abbreviations: 沪 or 申 ( pinyin: Hù or Shen) | |
| Origin of Name | 上 shàng - up 海 hǎi - sea see text for explanation |
| Area - Total - % of national - % water | Ranked 31st 6340.5 km² 0.06% xx% |
| Population - Total ( 20012001 is a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar), and also: The International Year of the Volunteer The United Nations Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations Events January January 1 A black monolith measuring approximately nine feet tall ap) - % of national - DensityFor other meanings of density, see density (disambiguation Density (symbol: rho Greek: rho) is a measure of mass per unit of volume. The higher an object's density, the higher its mass per volume. The average density of an object equals its total mass div | Ranked 25thThis is a list of administrative regions of the People's Republic of China (including all provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities and special administrative regions) in order of their total population. The data, effective for 2001, are from the 2002
13,271,400 1.26% 2093/km² |
| GDPIn economics, the gross domestic product GDP is a measure of the amount of the economic production of a particular territory in financial capital terms during a specific time period. Definition GDP is defined as the total value of all goods and services p in RMB¥The renminbi (Traditional Chinese: , Simplified Chinese: , literally means "people's currency") is the official currency of the People's Republic of China. It is issued by the People's Bank of China, the monetary authority of mainland China. The official - Total ( 20022002 is a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). 2002 was the first palindromic year since 1991 and the last until 2112. 2002 was also designated: International Year of Ecotourism and Mountains National Science Year in the United Kingdom) - % of national - per capita | Ranked 8thBelow are the gross domestic products of all the provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in Mainland China in 2002. The unit is in billions (109) of Renminbi. See also: List of China administrative regions by area List of China administrative re 540.876 billion ¥ 5.8% 40755 ¥ |
| City flower | Yulan magnolia (Magnolia denudata) |
| Local language | Chinese - Wu - Shanghainese |
| Administration Type | Municipality |
| Mayor | Han Zheng |
| CPC Shanghai Committee Secretary | Chen Liangyu |
| County-level divisions | 19 |
| Township-level divisions | 221 |
| ISO 3166-2 | CN-31 |
| Postal Code | 200000 - 202100 |
| Area Code | 21 |
| License Plate Prefix | 沪A, B, D |
| 沪C (distant suburbs) | |
Before the forming of Shanghai city, Shanghai was called Songjiang county, a part of Suzhou city. The county was formed around 1000 years ago. From the time of the Song Dynasty (960-1279), Shanghai gradually became a busy seaport.
A city wall was built in AD 1553, which is generally regarded as the beginning of Shanghai City. However, before the 19th century, Shanghai was not a major city, and in contrast to other major Chinese cities, there are few ancient Chinese landmarks there. Before 1927 Shanghai belonged to Jiangsu province with the capital of Nanjing. Since Shanghai became a Special Administration City in 1927, its official position has been equal to China's province.
The role of Shanghai changed radically in the 19th century, as the city's strategic position at the mouth of the Yangtze River made it an ideal location for trade with the West.
During the First Opium War in the early- 19th century, British forces temporarily held Shanghai. The war ended with the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing, which saw the treaty ports, Shanghai included, opened for international trade. The Treaty of the Bogue signed in 1843, and the Sino-American Treaty of Wangsia signed in 1844 together saw foreign nations achieve extraterritoriality on Chinese soil.
The Taiping Rebellion broke out in 1850, and in 1853 Shanghai was occupied by a triad offshoot of the rebels, called the Small Swords Society . The fighting destroyed the countryside but left the foreigners' settlements untouched, and Chinese arrived seeking refuge. Although previously Chinese were forbidden to live in foreign settlements, 1854 saw new regulations drawn up making land available to Chinese. Land prices rose substantially. The year also saw the first annual meeting of the Shanghai Municipal Council , substantiated in order to manage the foreign settlements. In 1863, the British and American settlements joined in order to form the International Settlement.
The Sino-Japanese War fought 1894- 95 over control of Korea concluded with the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which saw Japan emerge as an additional foreign power in Shanghai. Japan built the first factories in Shanghai, which were soon copied by other foreign powers to effect the emergence of Shanghai industry. During World War II, Shanghai was a centre for refugees from Europe. She was the only city in the world that was open unconditionally to the Jews at the time.
Shanghai was then the biggest financial city in the Far East. Under the Republic of China, Shanghai was made a special city in 1927, and a municipality in May 1930. The Japanese Navy bombed Shanghai on January 28, 1932, in an effort to crush down Chinese student protests of the Manchurian Incident and the subsequent Japanese occupation. Shanghai was lost to Japan in the Battle of Shanghai in 1937 until its surrender in 1945.
On May 27, 1949, Shanghai became under communist control and was one of the only two former ROC municipalities not immediately merged into neighbouring provinces (the other being Beijing). It then underwent a series of changes in the boundaries of its subdivisions, especially in the next decade.
After 1949, however, most foreign firms moved their offices from Shanghai to Hong Kong. During the 1950s and 1960s, Shanghai became an industrial center and center for revolutionary leftism. Yet, even during the most tumultuous times of the Cultural Revolution, Shanghai was able to maintain high economic productivity and relative social stability. In most of the history of the PRC, Shanghai has been the largest contributor of tax revenue to the central government compared with other Chinese provinces and municipalities. In the early eighties, 70-80% of the entire national tax revenue came from the municipality of Shanghai alone. This came at the cost of severely crippling Shanghai's infrastructure and capital development. Its importance to China's fiscal well-being also denied it economic liberalizations that were started in the far southern provinces such as Guangdong during the mid-eighties. At that time Guangdong province paid nearly no taxes to the central government, and thus was perceived as fiscally dispendable for experimental economic reforms. Shanghai was not permitted to initiate economic reforms until 1991.
200px Pudong skyline by day
Shanghai has traditionally been seen as a stepping stone to positions within the PRC central government. In the 1990s, there was often described a " Shanghai clique" which included the president of the PRC Jiang Zemin and the premier of the PRC Zhu Rongji. Starting in 1992, the central government under Jiang Zemin, a former Mayor of Shanghai, began reducing the tax burden on Shanghai and encouraging both foreign and domestic investment in order to promote it as the economic hub of east Asia and to encourage its role as gateway of investment to the Chinese interior. Since then it has experienced continuous economic growth of between 9-15% annually, arguably at the expense of growth in Hong Kong, leading China's overall development.