Zhujiajiao

Zhujiajiao (朱家角, Zhūjiājiǎo) is a canal town in Qingpu District, on the western edge of Shanghai. It is the easiest of the region’s water towns to reach from the city centre, because Metro Line 17 has a station within walking distance of the old town. Come for the stone bridges, the narrow riverside streets and a sense of how a market town on Jiangnan waterways was laid out.

Sources disagree on how old the town is. English Wikipedia says it was established about 1,700 years ago and cites finds going back 5,000 years. Chinese Wikipedia gives a more detailed account: land formed here about 7,000 years ago, a market existed under the name Zhujia village by the Song and Yuan dynasties, and in the Wanli reign of the Ming it was formally made a town called Zhujiege (珠街阁). Treat the older dates as approximate, and the Ming founding as the better documented point.

Trade made the town. In the late Ming and early Qing, rice dealing took off and pulled other businesses with it. A local saying of the period, recorded on Chinese Wikipedia, described a main street three li long with a thousand shops, and ranked Zhujiajiao above the neighbouring towns of Zhujing, Fengjing and Sijing. The Shanghai government listed it among the first batch of Shanghai historic and cultural towns in February 1991.

The centrepiece of a visit is Fangsheng Bridge (放生桥, Fàngshēng Qiáo) over the Cao Port. It was first built in 1571 with money collected by a monk of Cimen Temple and rebuilt in 1812. It has five arches, is 70.8 metres long and 5.8 metres wide, and is described as the largest stone bridge in Shanghai. The name refers to a custom of releasing live fish from the bridge; it has been a municipal heritage site since 1987.

Elsewhere, the old streets still hold rice shops, banks and spice stores, plus a Qing-dynasty post office. Kezhi Garden and the Yuanjin Buddhist Temple (圆津禅院) are the other sights English Wikipedia names. The visitor area is organised around old streets such as North Street, Jingting Street, Daxin Street and Caohe Street, and North Street was named one of Shanghai’s ten leisure streets in 2005.

Expect a busy, commercial setting. English Wikipedia notes concern that overdevelopment since about 2012 has eroded the town’s authenticity, including shops replacing the people’s square and large complexes built around the old town. The quieter back lanes and the bridges themselves are where the older fabric is easiest to read.

Practical notes: the Line 17 station is the simplest route, and boats are part of local transport on the waterways. No official opening hours or ticket information was found, so check on the day whether individual sights charge entry.