Shanghai travel guide

Shanghai is the future all other Chinese cities aspire to reach. Forget creaking temples and dusty old palaces (there are plenty of them elsewhere); Shanghai is where people come to see modern China at its glimmering best.

This fast-paced city of towering skyscrapers is, in fact, not without its own significant history. Its glory days of the 1930s helped build Shanghai's reputation as a City of Sin. But to pause for too long at the city's past would be missing the point: Shanghai is all about the future face of the world's future super power, and coming here is to witness what makes the business end of China tick.

Perhaps best visited at the end of your trip to China, Shanghai offers history-tired tourists the chance to dine at glitzy restaurants, wine at funky cocktail bars and shop inside dazzling malls before resting up in the country's most impressive hotels.