Whore of the East, Paris of China and Queen of the Orient; city of quick riches, ill-gotten gains and fortunes lost on the tumble of dice; the domain of adventurers, swindlers, gamblers, drug runners, idle rich, dandies, tycoons, missionaries, gangsters and backstreet pimps; the city that plots revolutions and dances as the revolution shoots its way into town - Shanghai was a dark memory during the long years of forgetting that the Communists visited upon their new China.

Shanghai put away its dancing shoes in 1949. The masses began shuffling to a different tune - the dour strains of Marxist-Leninism and the wail of the factory siren; and all through these years of oblivion, the architects of this social experiment firmly wedged one foot against the door on Shanghai's past. Today Shanghai has reawakened and is busy snapping the dust off its cummerbund. The sun rises every day to a city typifying the huge disparities of modern China. History is returning to haunt Shanghai and, at the same time, to put it squarely back on the map.

Area: 6340 sq km (2473sq mi)
Population: 16.7 million
Country: People's Republic of China
People: Han Chinese
Main language: Mandarin (putonghua)/Shanghaihua
Time Zone: GMT/UTC +8
Telephone Code: 021

Orientation
Shanghai lies in central-eastern China, exposed to the East China Sea. Broadly, central Shanghai is divided into two areas: Pudong (east of the Huangpu River) and Puxi (west of the Huangpu River). Shanghai still has no single focus and the feel of the city still owes much to the original concessions. For visitors, most attractions are in Puxi, including the Bund - the tourist centrepiece, though not the physical centre of town. West of the Bund is the former International Settlement and one of Shanghai's main shopping streets, Nanjing Lu. South of the Bund is the Chinese city, a maze of narrow lanes. West of the old town and hidden in the backstreets north and south of Huaihai Lu (Shanghai's premier shopping street) is the former French Concession, with tree-lined streets, 1930s architecture, and cafes and bars. At its west end is a major collection of Western restaurants and bars.

Continuing southeast, you come to the massive shopping intersection of Xujiahui. Farther south is Shanghai Stadium. Western Shanghai is dominated by Hongqiano, a hotel/conference centre/office zone. Farther west is Gubei, an expat area. Northeastern Shanghai has an industrial feel and is home to several universities. Farther northwest is Zhapei and Shanghai train station. On the east side of the Huanpu is Pudong, a special economic zone of banks, skyscrapers and new residential complexes. Street names are given in Pinyin, which makes navigating easy, and many of the streets are named after cities and provinces.

When to Go
The best times to visit Shanghai are spring (April to mid-May) and autumn (late September to mid-November). In winter, temperatures can drop well below freezing, with a blanket of drizzle, although at least there are few tourists and hotels are heavily discounted. Summer is the peak travel season, though this is the worst time to visit as it's hot and humid with temperatures as high as 40°C (104°F). In short, you'll need silk long johns and down jackets for winter, an ice block for each armpit for summer and an umbrella wouldn't go astray in any season. Avoid major trade fairs and Chinese New Year, when the city grinds to a halt and local transport gets swamped with domestic travellers. Events
The biggest event in Shanghai's calendar is the Spring Festival, when many people take a week off and the city grinds to a halt. The Longhua Temple has large celebrations, with dragon and lion dances. The Lantern Festvial (February) is a colourful time to visit, especially in the Yuyuan Gardens, with people carrying coloured paper lanterns. A Temple Fair is held at the Longhua Temple on the third day of the third lunar month (around April). It's eastern China's largest and oldest folk gathering. The Shanghai International Tea Culture Festival is usually at the end of April. Tomb Sweeping Day, also in April, is a day for worshipping ancestors; people visit the graves of their dearly departed relatives and often burn 'ghost money' (for use in the afterworld) for the departed.

The Dragon Boat Festival on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month (June) commemorates the death of Qu Yuan, a third-century BC poet-statesman who drowned himself to protest against the corrupt government. The Shanghai Beer Festival staggers into town around the end of July. The Mid-Autumn Festival is also known as the Moon Festival and is the time to eat tasty moon cakes. It takes place in September, on the 15th day of the 8th moon. The Shanghai Tourism Festival kicks off in late September and offers a wide variety of cultural programs. In November and early December there's an annual International Arts Festival.

Public holidays
1 January - New Year's Day
February - Spring Festival (Chinese New Year)
8 March - International Working Women's DayAttractions
The Bund
The Bund is an Anglo-Indian term for the embankment of a muddy waterfront. The term is apt: mud bedevils the city. Its muddy predicament aside, the Bund is symbolic. To the Europeans, it was Shanghai's Wall Street, a place of feverish trading and an unabashed playground for Western business sophisticates. It remains the city's most eloquent reminder that Shanghai is a very foreign invention.

Still a grand strip of hotels, shopping streets and nightclubs, the Bund remains an intrinsic part of Shanghai's character. Constant throngs of Chinese and foreign tourists pad past the porticos of the Bund's grand edifices while the buildings themselves loom serenely; a vagabond assortment of neoclassical 1930s downtown New York styles, with a touch of monumental antiquity thrown in for good measure. The building identified by a crowning dome is the old Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, completed in 1921 with much pomp and ceremony. For many years it has housed the Shanghai People's Municipal Government. The Hongkong and Shanghai Bank has long been negotiating to get it back. Other Bund fixtures are being sold off, and will no doubt be dusted off and cleaned up.