Shanghai Holidays

City of sin and decadent exoticism in the 1920s and 30s, theatre of vicious conflict during Japans China Incident, cradle of Chinese Communism and the Cultural Revolution, flag bearer of modern Chinas market reforms, inspiration for lurid novels, films and cocktails Shanghai is probably the most evocative city for an outsider in the whole of China. Beijing may be more mysterious but Shanghai offers a headier brew of half-digested images and preconceptions.

For the second city of the worlds oldest surviving ancient civilisation, Shanghai is surprisingly new. Literally Above the Sea, Shanghai is a port city on the Huangpu River, where the Yangzi River empties into the East China Sea. The area was marshland until the Song Dynasty (AD 960-1126), when refugees from Mongol and other northern nomad invasions settled the area. By 1291, Shanghai had become a county capital. The growing city got its wall in 1553 (prophetically, against Japanese pirates) and a customs house in 1685. Shanghai was only thrust into the spotlight in June 1842, when a British seaborne force captured it during the First Opium War. One of five cities pried open to Western colonial trade by the Treaty of Nanjing, Shanghai gained foreign districts controlled by the colonial powers the British and American Concessions (soon combined as the International Settlement) and the French Concession. This hybrid city boomed as the focus of Chinese colonial trade and Qing Dynasty China uneasily coexisted with Western power for almost a century.

Today, the Yuyuan Gardens in Shanghais Old Town is all that remains of the citys pre-colonial past. Colonialism is visible in the period architecture of the former French Concession, as well as the grand old buildings along the river-front Bund. Across the river from the original settlement of Puxi is Shanghais future, the Pudong New Area, with its emblematic Orient Pearl Tower, and soaring modern art-deco JinMao Tower.

By 1937, Shanghai was the worlds fifth largest city and Chinas most advanced, home to a rich ethnic mix of East and West and protected by its colonial status from the political storms ravaging the rest of China. In August that year, bombs (actually Chinese) fell on the foreign concessions for the first time. The Westerners began pulling out and by the start of the Pacific War in 1941, there were few Western nationals left for the Japanese to intern. The British and Americans gave up their colonial rights in 1943, to their new allies, the Nationalist Chinese, who took over Shanghai after the Japanese surrender in 1945. However, four years later, the city again fell to the Red Army.

Under the Communists, Shanghais businesses were nationalised but the city remained quiet until the Cultural Revolution, when Mao Zedong made it his new power base for his Gang of Four and his campaign against the Beijing leadership. Shanghai remained a centre for Cultural Revolution excesses until Maos death in 1976. Reconstruction proceeded slowly afterwards. From 1990, Shanghai has developed at breakneck speed, experiencing massive-scale investment and urban regeneration and an economic renaissance assisted by Chinas accession to the World Trade Organisation in 2001.

In 2004, Shanghai hosted the inaugural Chinese Grand Prix and will also benefit from the knock-on effects of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Centre-stage status will follow, in 2010, when Shanghai hosts World Expo. Easily Chinas richest city, Shanghai is now a showcase for modern China - replete with hundreds of futuristic skyscrapers, increasing urban affluency and restaurants, bars, hotels and levels of brand awareness that compete with New York, Paris and London.

Shanghai experiences climatic extremes, with bitter winters and hot and humid summers. The best time for visitors to plan a trip to the city would be during the autumn or spring months.