The Travel Guide of French Concession

Shanghai French Concession used to be the foreign concession of France in Shanghai, China from 1849 to 1946, and it was progressively expanded between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. and now is a district in the city. It covers the Xuhui District and Luwan District, occupying the center, south and west of urban Shanghai, and its central Huaihai Road is a busy shopping street. Its tree-lined avenues and their many Tudor mansions still retain an air of the "Paris of the East".It is a good place for foreign people to visit,you can see different views from Shanghai.There are some place I choose to introduce you to visit.

Some of the French Concession's delapidated villas and crowdedshikumen (stone gate) warrens have fallen to the wrecking ball, others have been renovated and reimagined, creating vibrant new streets full of restaurants, boutiques and galleries where only a few years ago metal-working shops and local produce markets did their business. The good news for tourists is that the trend has been as much toward renovation as toward demolition and new construction, allowing entrepreneur-driven hives of nascent hip like Tianzifang in the south to develop as a solid alternative to the glitz of Huaihai Zhong Lu to the north, the mega-mall mania of Xujiahui in the west and the theme-park historicism ofXintiandi at the eastern end of the old French Concession.In between the above-mentioned points on the French Concession compass, numerous small streets hold surprises for the strolling urban explorer, from the cafes on Shaoxing Lu to the shady nooks of Fuxing Park; from the Art Deco grand dames standing watch over Fuxing Lu as it heads west to meet Huashan Lu to remaining shikumen like Cité Bourgogne.

Covering what are now Xuhui and the western part of Huangpu—formerly Luwan—districts, the French Concession was established in 1848, following the establishment of a British and later an American settlement after the opening of Shanghai as one of the treaty ports named in the Treaty of Nanking (Nanjing) that ended the First Opium War. The puppet government of Vichy France signed the area over to the Empire of Japan in 1943. The area returned to Chinese control after the end of World War II.

If you want old-Shanghai romance with the convenience of downtown living, look no further than this enticing network of tree-lined streets, stretching from Yanan Lu (road) in the north, Zhaojiabang Lu in the south, Huashan Lu in the west and Xizang Nan Lu to the east.