Lin Gui

Lin Gui (麟桂, Línguì) was the Shanghai daotai under whom all three of the early foreign settlements took shape in 1848 and 1849.

A Manchu of the Bordered White Banner, he had been daotai of the Ningbo-Shaoxing-Taizhou circuit before moving to Shanghai in 1848. On 27 November 1848 he agreed with British consul Rutherford Alcock to push the British settlement west to the Muddy City Creek and north to Suzhou Creek.

The same year, at the request of the American Episcopal missionary William Jones Boone, he assigned Hongkou, across Suzhou Creek, to American residents. On 6 April 1849 he issued the notice establishing the French concession, whose limits had been negotiated with consul Montigny. The French later named a road in the concession after him, in gratitude according to the gazetteer; it is now the eastern section of Jinxian Road (进贤路). The gazetteer gives no birth or death dates for him.