Shanghai
Shanghai is a provincial-level direct-administered municipality in China.
Shanghai is a provincial-level direct-administered municipality in China. It has a population of 30,050,000 in the urban area as of 2026, thus making it China's most populous city and more broadly the fifth-largest city in the world by population. The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River bisecting the city.
Adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Worth seeing in and around Shanghai
10 places within 25 km that the world writes about, in the order of how widely: the ones a visitor has heard of first, then the ones only a local would name.
- 01Shanghai World Financial Center
The Shanghai World Financial Center is a supertall skyscraper located in the Pudong district of Shanghai. It was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox and developed by the Mori Building Company, with Leslie E. Robertson Associates as its structural engineer and China State Construction Engineering Corporation and Shanghai Construction General Co.
3.2 km · skyscraper in Shanghai · Wikipedia - 02Shanghai Tower
The Shanghai Tower is a 128-story, 632-meter-tall megatall skyscraper located in Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai. It is currently the tallest building in China, the world's third-tallest building by height to architectural top, and the world's second-tallest building by height to highest occupied floor.
3 km · megatall skyscraper in Lujiazui, Shanghai, China · Wikipedia - 03Fudan University
Fudan University is a public university in Yangpu, Shanghai, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education and is co-funded with the Shanghai Municipal Government.
7.9 km · university in Shanghai, China · Wikipedia - 04Oriental Pearl Tower
The Oriental Pearl Tower is a futurist TV tower in Lujiazui, Shanghai. Built from 1991 to 1994, the tower was the tallest structure in China until the completion of nearby World Financial Center in 2007.
2.6 km · TV tower in Shanghai, China · Wikipedia - 05Jin Mao Tower
The Jin Mao Tower, also known as the Jinmao Building or Jinmao Tower, is a 420.5-meter-tall, 88-story landmark skyscraper in Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai, China.
3.1 km · landmark skyscraper in Shanghai · Wikipedia - 06Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University is a public university in Shanghai, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education of China.
5.1 km · university in Shanghai, China · Wikipedia - 07East China Normal University
East China Normal University is a public university in Shanghai, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education and co-funded with the Shanghai Municipal People's Government.
6.6 km · university in Shanghai, China · Wikipedia - 08Shimao International Plaza
Shanghai Shimao Festival City, previously known as Shimao International Plaza, is a 333.3 m tall skyscraper of 60 stories in Shanghai's Huangpu District. It was completed in 2006 under the design of Ingenhoven, Overdiek und Partner, East China Architecture and Design Institute.
300 m · skyscraper · Wikipedia - 09Shanghai Stadium
The Shanghai Stadium is a converted football-specific stadium in Shanghai, China. Between 2009 and 2019, the stadium hosted home matches of the Chinese Super League team Shanghai SIPG, and has been the current home of Shanghai Shenhua since 2023.
6.2 km · stadium in Shanghai, China · Wikipedia - 10Yu Garden
Yu Garden or Yuyuan Garden is an extensive Chinese garden located beside the City God Temple in the northeast of the Old City of Shanghai at Huangpu District, Shanghai.
1.8 km · classical garden in Shanghai · Wikipedia
Ranked by the number of language editions of Wikipedia with an article on each, from Wikidata; the sentences are the openings of those articles, CC BY-SA 4.0.
What Wikivoyage says to see
Where to go in Shanghai depends largely on available time and your interests. For the areas with most of the main tourist attractions, see the Downtown and Pudong sections above and the district articles they link to. If you read Chinese well, the Meituan app, Amap, or Baidu search engine may also be helpful.
From Wikivoyage: Shanghai, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Things to do
The municipal government runs the Shanghai Cultural Information website which has good listings of current events (special exhibits at museums and galleries; shows such as acrobatics at the circus, touring musicians, and plays; sporting events).
From Wikivoyage: Shanghai, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Where to eat
Many food options in Shanghai are much as anywhere else in China. A lot of the street food is cheap and interesting; roasted sweet potatoes are a common and low-risk item. Hole-in-the-wall restaurants, especially West-of-China Muslim noodle places or spicy Sichuan places, often have good cheap food as well.
From Wikivoyage: Shanghai, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Getting to Shanghai
- Airports
- Shanghai Hongqiao (SHA), 13 km · Shanghai Pudong (PVG), 33 km · Sunan Shuofang (WUX), 103 km
- Stations
- Shanghai railway station, 2.8 km · Shanghainan Railway Station, 9.7 km · Xujiahui station, 5.3 km · Shanghai West railway station, 7.8 km
- Wuxi → Shanghai118 km · quickest by road, 2h 19m · ¥50–70
- Hangzhou → Shanghai161 km · quickest by road, 2h 37m · ¥65–90
- Ningbo → Shanghai150 km · quickest by road, 3h 9m · ¥80–110
- Plan a tripFrom anywhereThe planner compares every way there from wherever you are.
Road and air are today’s quick answer; timetabled trains, buses and ferries load on the results page from the operators’ feeds.
No local-transport research exists yet for Shanghai
Our researched notes are written from a sourced entry: every shared taxi, boat and village bus with its operator, its rule, its fare and the year we saw it, and what could not be confirmed. Nobody has done that work for Shanghai. What is above is what we hold from open sources; nothing here pretends to be more.
- Get inThere are ferry services from Kobe and Osaka (Japan) weekly.
- Get aroundChina T-union covers all bus, metro and ferry lines in Shanghai, as well as taxis.
- Get aroundA useful ferry runs between the Bund (from a ferry pier a few blocks south of Nanjing Road next to the KFC restaurant) and Lujiazui financial district in Pudong (the terminal is about 10 minutes south of the Pearl TV Tower and Lujiazui metro station) and is the cheapest way of crossing the river at ¥2 per person.
- Get aroundHowever, some of the ferry stations are not directly connected to public transport so you need to walk a bit.
- Get aroundBicycles and mopeds are not allowed on many major roads (signs designate this), or in the tunnels and on the bridges between Pudong and Puxi (the only way to cross is by ferry).
From Wikivoyage: Shanghai, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us; that article was last edited 2026-09.
- 01580 km
- 02796 km
- 03810 km
- 04813 km
- 05822 km
If you know how people move in Shanghai – the stand, the rule, the fare – tell us, and the note gets an entry.
Next door to Shanghai
Shanghai is 1 km from Huangpu, the nearest large city, whose note carries the wider picture.
- Pudongdistrict of Shanghai, China6.8 km
- Huangpu Districtdistrict of Shanghai, China1.5 km
- The Bundhistorical district in central Shanghai, China1.7 km
- Jing'an Districtdistrict of Shanghai, China2.5 km
- Xuhui Districtdistrict of Shanghai, China5.9 km
- Putuo Districtdistrict of Shanghai, China7.6 km