Foreign settlement · 1848–1863
American Settlement
美租界
The American ground in Hongkou, north of Suzhou Creek, where the Episcopal mission settled from 1848; its limits were never formally fixed before it joined the British Settlement in 1863 to form the International Settlement.
- Dates
- 1848-01-01 – 1863-09-21
- Area
- 7,856 mu at its largestAreas are in Chinese mu (亩), the unit the sources use: 1 mu is about 667 m², a sixth of an acre; 15 mu make a hectare.
- Governed by
- No municipal body of its own; residents paid rates to the British Settlement's council from the 1850s and joined it formally in 1863.
Boundaries over today's map
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Boundaries in 1849
- American Settlement (Hongkou)美租界（虹口）1848–1863-09-21 · 7,856 mu · approximate line
Boundary lines follow today’s streets where the old creeks and roads ran; dashed lines are inferred. Expect errors of a street or two, not more.
Timeline
Click a year on the axis to read what happened and set the map to that period.
Boundary1 of 3
Americans settle in Hongkou
美国人在虹口落脚
Bishop Boone's mission had rented land across Suzhou Creek; the daotai agreed that Hongkou could serve as an American settlement, with no boundary fixed.
Government2 of 3
The Municipal Council is elected
工部局成立
The land renters, under the British, American and French consuls, adopted revised Land Regulations and elected a Municipal Council with power to levy rates and hire police.
Boundary3 of 3
British and American settlements unite
英美租界合并
The two settlements north of the Yangjingbang were united under one council; from 1899 the merged area was called the International Settlement.
How it was run
How Shanghai's foreign settlements grew, 1845–1943
How the British, American, French and International settlements grew from 830 mu in 1845 to 48,000 mu by 1914, boundary by boundary.
Boundary stones and outside roads: where the Settlement ended, and where it didn't, 1893–1940
Forty stones set in 1893, a line the police could not see, forty-eight miles of roads beyond it: how the edge of the Settlement was marked and crossed.
Places inside its final boundary
Computed from each place's coordinates against the boundary as drawn along today's streets; places close to a line are marked on their own pages.
The Bund
Shanghai's first Western hotel, founded 1846 and rebuilt c.1907–1911 by Waibaidu Bridge; site of the 1990 stock exchange, now a securities museum.
Brown-brick Art Deco tower of 1934 at the north end of Waibaidu Bridge, built as a hotel and apartments for foreigners; renamed Shanghai Mansions in 1951.
General Post Office Building上海邮政总局
Shanghai's head post office, built 1922-24 beside Suzhou Creek, still handles mail; the free Shanghai Postal Museum is on its second floor.
North Bund and Hongkou
Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum上海犹太难民纪念馆
A 1927 synagogue in Hongkou restored as a museum on the Jewish refugees who lived in Shanghai in the 1930s and 1940s; closed Mondays, ticketed.
Outer Shanghai
Yangpu Riverside杨浦滨江商业中心
A long-term city-level commercial centre planned along Yangshupu Road, on a Huangpu riverfront that has kept its old industrial structures.
Walks inside
Sources
- 1.Shanghai Concessions Gazetteer, Part 1 ch. 1 §1: Establishment of the settlements (上海租界志·第一篇 境域人口·第一章 租界境域·第一节 租界设立), 上海市档案馆（编）, 上海社会科学院出版社；上海市地方志办公室数字方志（在线）, 2001 — 第一节 租界设立gazetteer
- 2.A Short History of Shanghai (A Short History of Shanghai: Being an Account of the Growth and Development of the International Settlement), F. L. Hawks Pott, Kelly & Walsh, Shanghai (digitised copy on the Internet Archive), 1928 — pp. 48–49, 67book
- Shanghai Concessions Gazetteer, Part 1 ch. 1 §3: Expansion of the settlements上海租界志·第一篇 境域人口·第一章 租界境域·第三节 租界扩张