Shanghai: Landmarks and Institutions

Landmarks and Institutions

The city's commercial section, the former International Settlement, is modern and Western in appearance, with broad streets and boulevards lined with imposing buildings. The Bund (which runs along the waterfront), Nanjing Road, and Bubbling Well Road are the most noted thoroughfares. Typical Asian buildings are found only in the original Chinese town (no longer walled), known as Nanshi. The Oriental Pearl Television Tower (1,535 ft/468 m high), three neighboring, soaring skyscrapers—the Shanghai Tower, the Shanghai World Financial Center, and the Jin Mao Tower—that are among the tallest buildings in the world, and the butterfly-orchid-shaped Oriental Arts Center with its four performance halls are in Pudong.

Next to Beijing, Shanghai is the country's foremost educational center and is home to Fudan Univ., Jiaotong Univ., Shanghai Univ. of Science and Technology, Tongji Univ., three medical colleges, and numerous technological and scientific institutes. Shanghai has an astronomical observatory and many research institutes and learned societies. People's Square, refurbished in the late 1990s, is the site of an opera house and a museum containing the country's finest collection of Chinese art. The Shanghai Contemporary Art Museum, in a converted 19th-century power plant, was the first government-supported museum of its kind in China. The China Art Museum houses a large collection of Chinese modern art, and the West Bund Museum features art from Paris's Pompidou Centre. Several private museums, notably the Minsheng and the Rockbund Art Museums, also show new art.

Sections in this article:

Introduction
History
Landmarks and Institutions
Economy
Bibliography

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