Shanghai Bund

Shanghai's world-renowned Bund has been the epitome of elegance throughout its 100-year history. Now many attractions new constructions have been erected in addition. "Bund" derives from an Anglo-Indian word for an embankment along a muddy waterfront and that is what it was in the beginning when the first British company opened a office there in 1846.

Located on the west bank of a bend (running north and south at this point) in the Huangpu River and just south of Suzhou Creek, the Bund became the site of some of the earliest foreign settlements after Shanghai was opened as one of five "Treaty Ports" in the Treaty of Nanjing that ended the Opium War in 1842. Because of its proximity to the Yangtze (Changjiang) River--the path into central China, Shanghai grew rapidly as the economic center of foreign interests.

Buildings in Greek, Renaissance and Baroque styles can be viewed in the western part of the Bund. The boat ride on the River will take the visitors down to the estuary of the Yangtze River in 3.15 hours.