Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Bund
Though the row of European buildings along the Huangpu River has since
1949 been known officially as Zhongshan Lu, and locals know it better as Wai
Tan (literally “outside beach”), it will always be
the Bund
to foreigners. The
northern end starts from the confluence of the Huangpu and the Suzhou
Creek, by
Wa i baidu Bridge
, a n d runs south for 1500m to Jinling Dong Lu,
formerly Rue du Consulat. You can get here by taking metro line #2 to
Nanjing Dong Lu subway station and walking east along Nanjing Dong Lu
itself, which will bring you to the
Peace Hotel
, around a third or the way
down the strip.
Named after the Anglo-Indian term for the embankment of a muddy
foreshore, the Bund was old Shanghai's commercial heart, with the river quays
on one side, the offices of the leading
banks
and
trading houses
on the other.
These sturdy marble-and-granite structures, built in a mongrel mix of Anglo-
Oriental styles ranging from Italian Renaissance and neo-Grecian to Moorish,
were both a celebration of Western commercial enterprise and a declaration of
dominance. During Shanghai's riotous heyday this was also a hectic working
harbour
, where vessels from tiny sailing junks to ocean-going freighters
unloaded under the watch of British (and later American and Japanese)
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