A Guide to Shanghai Suburbs

The present Shanghai skyline is famous for skyscrapers, and it occupies fifth place in the world for most skyscrapers. It is home to the majestic 632 meters tall Shanghai towers, the second tallest tower in the world, after Burj Dubai. The city has multiple skyscrapers upping the 400-meter mark. The huge 2650 sq km city has many neighborhoods, and it might not be easy for a first-timer to move around in the city easily. Each neighborhood is almost fully self-contained so that the locals can lead their daily routine life easily. Each area has got multiple places of interest, and you can enjoy the time spent here. We have prepared a guide to Shanghai Suburbs to help you out in this.

Zhujiajiao Ancient town has an ancient history dating back to 1700 years when it was a village. The earliest civilization signs through archaeological research date 5000 years back. It is a lovely Shanghai suburb to the south of the Yangtze River. The 48 sq km neighborhood has nine long streets running along the river and numerous buildings belonging to the Ming and Qing dynasty era flanking on either side of the river. There are 36 bridges across the river, including the famous first 5 stone arch bridge called Fangsheng Bridge built-in 1571. The great north street houses a thousand shops. Other things worth seeing are the KeZhi garden and Wang Chang memorial hall for their architectural beauty. You can enjoy walking on the nicely paved streets to get a view of the architecture and culture of the city along the river.

Tour boats are available here for Yuan 80 for short tours and Yuan 150 for a long tour. Some of the following tourist attractions are covered by the tour boats depending on the short or long routes you chose, like Town God temple, Yuanjin temple, KeZhi garden, Fangsheng bridge, Handalong sauce, and pickles, and Qing imperial post.

The beautiful Gucun Park is located in the Baoshan district of the city, at 1 Huandao Road, 4788, Hutai Road, Gucun Town. It is a huge 430 hectares forest park located on either side of the river and has a big bio-diversity eco-system. It is a part of Shanghai’s outer environmental engineering to have big forest parks to get oxygen-rich lung spaces, enabling man to integrate with nature instead of being at war with it. The park has everything, forest park, gardens, walking paths, water forest scenic area, children’s play area, flower garden, youth activity center, health activity center, Yuelin lake water forest area, and forest meadow. The park combines fun, entertainment, health, and children activities in natural surroundings to encourage people to go outdoors and have fun in a healthy natural environment. It has something for all age groups and is a place you must visit. Apart from this, the park brings international folk arts while retaining Boashan's traditional industrial culture. A fossil museum is also available where many ancient fossils are displayed.

The park is open from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM. It has many food outlets available, including a chocolate park where the entire production process can be seen. This can be featured in your list of Shanghai Suburbs.

The Zhaojialou Ancient Town was in 1991 listed as one of the four historic and cultural towns of Shanghai and is on top of our list of Shanghai Suburbs. The Xiaogang River flows through the center of the town. It is also known as the Venice of China. In recent years several cafes, souvenir shops, bookshops, and trendy shops have come up attracting more tourists, especially youngsters, to the area. You will have plenty of natural scenery to take in as you walk across the small town’s streets where you will end up discovering a new and different landscape at the end of each street. You can see the distinct architecture of the Ming and Qing dynasties on both sides of the water canal. You can also visit the Zhuxi garden, Humanities Art museum. Dianshan lake, Kai Kui peak, Qiaojie temple hall garden, Yuanjin Zen hall are some of the lovely places you can visit in the scenic area of the town. The most attractive thing here is that there are many delicacies here. The ancient town is very close to the people, clean, maintaining the architectural characteristics of the water village, food is particularly plentiful, straw bread and fresh bamboo shoots roast wheat is particularly delicious.

The Sheshan National Forest Park in our Shanghai suburbs list is a hill park which you will welcome as a getaway from the busy city life to spend a few hours of quiet life amidst nature in all its glory. The East and West Sheshan mountains have four parks, which are big tourist attractions. The west Sheshan Park has nine hills, apart from the lovely man-made landscapes. It has Church of our Lady Sheshan, probably the first Church in southeast Asia as also an observatory nearby. The east Sheshan Park has rich biodiversity with 2000 species of plants, 100 species of birds, and many wild animals, making them their habitat. It also has a plant fossil forest, butterfly garden, and wonder stone cave. Apart from these, now new additions are made to the park in the form of Sculpture Park, national bird park, dry land sleighs, forest hotel, and restaurant to attract more visitors and also for meeting recreation and food requirements.

The park is located at 9142, Qingsong Road, Songshan district. It is open from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM on all working days and from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM on holidays.

This exquisite Shanghai Chenshan Botanical Garden is next on our list of Shanghai suburbs for its 3 breathtaking glasshouses and brilliant 26 themed parks conceptualized in the 206-hectare park opened to the public in 2010. It is a collaboration between the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shanghai government to promote plant science, preserving regional fauna, as it also provides the much needed large lung space for the highly urbanized city overflowing with people. You will enjoy visiting the stunning conservatory, which features indoor gardens, desert greenhouses with cacti and succulents, and rare and exotic plant greenhouse. Apart from this, you need to visit the Rose Gardens with around 500 types of plants, Aquatic Plant Garden with around 150 types, Quarry Garden which is an old quarry turned garden with a stunning landscape including a lake, Vegetable Garden made up of four sections and Rose and Medicinal Plants Garden which is another old garden which is converted into a very useful plant garden.

The lovely garden is located at 3888 Chenhua Road, Songjiang District. It is open from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM on all days. An adult ticket costs Yuan 60. Seniors between Yuan 60 and 65 years get a 15% discount, and above 65 years are allowed free entry. Children between 6 and 18 years and students get tickets at 50% discount.

The Fengjing Ancient Town is another lovely water town in our Shanghai suburb list like the Zhujiajiao ancient town and is one of the eight attractions in Shanghai city. This is a 1500-year-old historical town with well-preserved water bodies, ancient architecture, and old bridges, all of which are a big tourist attraction. The suburb is full of Taoist temples. Its water bodies make a network that runs throughout the town, and it has a big network of 52 bridges some of which are still used by the people. The oldest bridge, Zhihe, has got a 700-year history. This place is known as the gateway to the southwest. Historically it is known as the Wuyue town as it is at the intersection of the Wu and Yue Kingdoms. Now, this is a vibrant town retaining its ancient roots, and you have many historical places to visit around, some of which might need a ticket. This suburb is also known for its peasant art, and many nice artworks are also sold here. You can also go shopping in the numerous small shops in many of the streets where you can find many interesting items.

The Xinchang Ancient Town is another charming place in our list of interesting Shanghai suburbs. It was earlier known as Xin Yan Chang, New Salt Place in Chinese, based on a salt manufacturer who had moved his salt unit to this place from near the sea. Some of the places where the traders used to relax and have tea are even now used as tea stalls. This water town is a good place to stroll around the cobbled streets where dozens of smaller shops and restaurants are available. In the center of the town, look out for Jiangnan's first 1 Teahouse, which is a relatively big and lovely ancient building where you can sit and have a cup of refreshing tea. You can relax in this town, have food, and also do some shopping. As you walk around, you can see buildings with Ming and Qing era architecture still around the town, which was essentially a collection of few villages at that time. Some of the interesting places to see are the Historical and Cultural Exhibition hall and the Stone Archway. Ang Lee’s film, Lust, Caution, was filmed in this beautiful town.

It is located at Haiquan Street, Xinchang Town, Pudong New Area. You can come to the town using a metro till Xinchang station and taking the 1108 bus to reach the place.

The next place in our list of Shanghai suburbs is the Thames town. You might be surprised, but as the name indicates, it is named after the London Thames River, with the architecture here is modeled after a typical British style city with cobbled streets, Victorian terraces, red telephone boxes, and street end shops. It is a new town in the Songjiang district, a part of the Songjiang new town, and is about 30 km from central Shanghai. This is part of a new One City, Nine Towns initiative where in many towns based on many international cities were created, like Paris with a replica of Eiffel Tower, a German, an Italian, a Dutch, a Canadian and Swedish town was built to draw in residents away from the overpopulated Shanghai. You can see several Chinese newlyweds doing a photo-shoot here in the British replicas. You can see many such imitations here, most importantly that of the Bristol Christ Church. It is innovative, imaginative, pain-staking imitations of a British town, but the effort has largely been in vain as the residents have not been impressed enough to move in from their ancestral homes. Instead, this place has become more of a tourist attraction and a place for good scenic photo-shoots for young Chinese.

The Shanghai Grand View Garden on our Shanghai Suburbs list is located at 701 Qinshang Road, Qingpu District, about 65 km from the city center. It is a 250-acre Chinese classic landscape garden replicated on the lines of Red Chamber, a Chinese fiction dream. Based on the novel, the garden is built with main buildings on a symmetrical north-south axis, and secondary buildings distributed equally on either side of this axis. The entrance is through a square wall with a huge arch where a giant screen is fixed with some exquisite carvings from the dream. Once you enter and pass a pond, you will find the large Ti Ren Mu De palace with three big halls with wonderful furniture, porcelain, and crockery. This garden, with the palace and other structures, was supposed to have been gifted by the Jia family to the king’s beautiful mistress. Beyond this palace and the lotus pond is the huge 2100 sq meter Grand Pavilion. Apart from these structures, there are a few other grand ones like the two-story palace with the majestic throne, the big Happy Red Court, Jiangyin house, Bamboo Lodge, Bamboo pavilion, Dragon chant pavilion, and Alpina Park. Each of the palaces, rooms, pavilions, and areas has a story behind it based on the novel.

The Xisha Wetland Park in our list of Shanghai suburbs is located at 588, Baohu Road, Chongming Islands, and was opened in the year 2005. It is a key component of the Chongming island national green geopark and is spread over a mammoth 4,500 acres area. It has the huge advantage of being a natural wetland with shallow wetlands and forests and with the natural tidal phenomenon. The effort is to preserve the natural wetlands, biodiversity, flora, and fauna and also improve upon by importing various birds suitable to these wetlands. You will find yourselves in an entirely different world once you enter this large delta wetland, which is also a huge effort at conservation and preservation of natural greenery and geo heritage of wetland landscape, and it retains 17 geological relics. The natural tides are the main phenomenon that is keeping these large delta island wetlands alive and active. Now this place, apart from being a tourist attraction, has turned into an area for scientific and research activity for the institutions to study nature and its preservation. Several facilities have been built for the benefit of tourists including a bridge to get close to nature. Boat rides are also available. Tickets need to be purchased for entry to the large lake at the far end.

11. Qibao Old Street

Qibao Old Street, the last place in our list of Shanghai suburbs to visit, is located on the western side of Jiangnan Imperial Palace, Qibao Town, Minhang District, by the Puhui River. There are still three-arched bridges standing over the Puhui River. This area was once the residence of the artist Zhang Chongren, on whom the Chinese character in the Adventures of Tintin is based on. Several popular tourist attractions are located here in this area. Qibao means seven treasures, and the legend has it that there were seven treasures around this area like the magic tree, the gold lotus scripture. The old town is from the Song dynasty, and the temples, gardens, and architecture you find are from the Ming and Qing dynasties. Some of the places you can visit are Shadowgraph Museum, Bell Tower, Old Trades House, Cotton Textiles Mills, The Memorial Hall of Zhang Chongren, Zhou’s miniature museum, and Quibao’s Calligraphy Arts Room. The area has dozens of tea stalls where you can get food with tea, and shops where you can buy souvenirs and other attractive items, especially on its popular food street.

We have endeavored to collate as much information as possible on our Shanghai suburbs list. We have included the old suburbs with their lovely centuries-old architecture and also included modern architecture with nature, also taking a central place to showcase how this huge city with the largest population in the world is doing something to conserve and preserve nature and its resources. These places might be of interest to you when you plan to visit the city. Shanghai has many more such places, and this list is by no means an attempt at an exhaustive tourist guide for Shanghai’s suburbs and the attractions. It is intending to ensure that you enjoy the flavor of the city in every possible way by covering such places in your tour itinerary.