Tracing a family address in old Shanghai

The short answer. Work out which road the address was on and which settlement it lay in, find that road’s modern name in a historic street-name database such as Virtual Shanghai’s, then confirm the position on a period map or directory before you travel. Many roads were renamed, some more than once, so a modern map alone will not find the house. Expect to end at a street or a lane rather than a front door: the building may have been replaced, and a family home may well be a private residence.

Why doesn’t the old address match anything today?

Road names changed. Streets in the foreign-run parts of the city carried names chosen by the Shanghai Municipal Council or the French authorities, and many were renamed afterwards. Some examples that can be checked:

• Avenue Joffre, in the former French Concession, was one of 25 roads named after French First World War military leaders in 1921. In November and December 1945 the Nationalist government renamed it Lin Sen Road, and in 1950 it became Huaihai Road (淮海路, Huáihǎi Lù).
• Bubbling Well Road in the International Settlement is today’s Nanjing Road West (南京西路, Nánjīng Xī Lù). It lay outside the Settlement line until the 1899 extension (see Boundary stones and outside roads).
• Avenue Edward VII was named in December 1915 for the road laid along the filled Yangjingbang creek from the Bund to Manila Road; it is today’s Yan’an Road East (延安东路, Yán’ān Dōng Lù). The story is in The creek that became Yan’an Road.
• Jessfield Road is today’s Wanhangdu Road (万航渡路, Wànhángdù Lù), and Boundary Road is Tianmu Road East.

A road could carry several names within a few decades, so note the year of your address. A 1930s Avenue Joffre and a 1946 Lin Sen Road are the same street.

Two authorities, two street grids. The International Settlement and the French Concession were run separately for most of this period (see How Shanghai’s foreign settlements grew). Read an address together with its settlement. Roads built outside the settlements, which the Council laid and taxed, are a third category.

Numbers moved too. Researchers who placed addresses from the 1939, 1940 and 1947 street directories had to redraw the street grid together with its street numbers, because the directory maps covered only parts of the city (Virtual Shanghai). Do not assume that No. 100 then is No. 100 now.

Lanes (里弄, lǐnòng). Many homes stood in a lane off a main road, written as a lane number plus a house number. The lane name or number is often the part of the address most worth keeping, so record it exactly as written.

What is the step-by-step method?

1. Write down the address exactly: spelling, Chinese characters if you have them, any lane or building name, and the year. Whether the road is spelt in English (Bubbling Well Road) or French (Avenue, Route, Rue) hints at the settlement.
2. Find the modern name. Virtual Shanghai’s Live Maps include a historical street-name database: search a street name and see its designations in Chinese, pinyin, English or French over time, each linked to a place on the map. The project also publishes a historical geocoder of the street grids of 1939 and 1946 with street numbers, and a dataset of 22,451 pre-1949 addresses placed on a 1989 map. Treat the results as starting points and cross-check them.
3. Look at a period map. Virtual Shanghai’s map collection holds digitised historic maps. On this site, the historical map shows the boundaries of the settlements by year over a modern base, so you can see which side of a boundary your road fell on. It does not show house numbers. The main map shows the modern streets.
4. Check a directory. The Shanghai Street Directory of 1924 and the July 1941 Desk Hong List (a business directory) are both scanned on the Internet Archive with searchable text. A directory helps most if your relative worked for a firm, because it lists company addresses; a private household will not always appear.
5. Consider the archives. See the next section.
6. Go and look, with the modern address in Chinese. Show a taxi driver the Chinese name (see getting around). Place pages on this site give the former names of buildings that are hotels or landmarks today, which helps if a family letter uses one: the Hengshan Picardie Hotel was the Picardie Apartments from 1934, and the Jin Jiang Hotel was Cathay Mansions from 1929. Each page carries a Chinese address card you can copy.

Can I use the archives?

The Shanghai Municipal Archives (上海市档案馆, Shànghǎi Shì Dàng’àn Guǎn) holds, according to Virtual Shanghai’s reference list, almost all the archives of the former foreign settlements and of the Republican-era municipal governments. In 2023 it launched an online platform, “Exploring Shanghai with Archives”, built on more than 170 million digitised records. The public part covers more than 50 historic buildings and landmarks near the Huangpu River and Suzhou Creek, with a knowledge graph linking buildings, events and people. Its address is dh.archives.sh.cn.

For records about a particular building, the city’s urban-construction archives have published use rules (2024). Anyone with lawful proof of identity, including a passport or an introduction letter, may use archives that have been opened. Archives not yet opened need additional documents, for example proof of ownership for an owner, and some categories need the archive’s approval. The rules say nothing specific about foreign visitors. Copies must not be carried, posted or sent out of the country without authorisation.

What we could not establish:

• Whether a foreign visitor can see residential or family records, and what is needed. We found no official statement. Ask the archives directly before you plan a trip.
• Visiting hours and reservation arrangements. Confirm them with the archives.

If it doesn’t work

• No hit for the road name. Try other spellings (Hongkew and Hongkou are the same district) and the Chinese name if you have it. Search a directory for neighbouring roads.
• The road exists but the number does not. Go to the lane or the block and look at the architecture; many early 20th-century houses survive on renamed roads.
• The building is gone. Much of the older city has been redeveloped. A cleared site is still a place you can stand.
• It is a private home. Many former residences are lived in. Look from the public street, do not walk into a lane or courtyard uninvited, and do not photograph residents.

Small print

Street-name databases, directories and archive rules change, and the Virtual Shanghai platform describes itself as under development. We have not checked the archives’ current visiting arrangements. Names used here are neutral, such as “the former French Concession” and “the International Settlement”. For wider planning, see where to stay.