Following are two indexes. The first alphabetically lists the former road names in Shanghai followed by their current names. The second simply reverses this and alphabetically lists all the current names followed by their former names. Both indices provide an indication as to whether the road was in the former International Settlement (IS), the former French Concession (FC) or the External Roads Area (ER). Simply look up a road by its former or current name and find the page number related to the individual entry.

I have taken as a final guide the road names that applied to the foreign...

The seal was designed by the Municipal Engineer, Mr. Oliver, approved by the Council in 1868 and brought into use in 1869. There were some later revisions due to national flag changes over time.

From its introduction the seal was almost universally disliked by both officials and Shanghailanders but as nobody ever came up with a better idea it remained the official seal.

The Chinese characters on the seal are 工部局 - Gong Bu Ju – or, thrillingly in English, “Works Department”.

The flags represented are as follows:

Top left hand shield: Great Britain, United States of America, France and...

The foreign-controlled settlements of Shanghai came into existence following the 1842 Treaty of Nanking in the wake of the First Opium War—the first of a series of commercial treaties, often referred to as the “Unequal Treaties” in China. The Nanking Treaty was followed swiftly by the Anglo-Chinese Treaty of the Bogue in 1844, which granted foreigners immunity from Chinese law in the concessions (the concept of extraterritoriality, commonly known as “extrality”) and the Sino-American Treaty of Wangxia (named after a village in northern Macao) signed in 1844. The French gained their concession rights through the Treaty of Whampoa, also...

The International Settlement was the name of the combined British and American concessions whose governing body was the Shanghai Municipal Council (SMC), established in 1854. It was effectively the waterways of Shanghai that decided the initial boundaries—obviously the Whangpoo River but also the Soochow Creek (formerly known as the Woosung River prior to the creation of the Settlements) to the north and the Yangjing Creek to the south. Soochow Creek was effectively a tributary of the Whangpoo; the Yangjing, Siccawei (Zikawei) and other creeks were little more than ditches, or, following the Hindi term for a creek adopted by...

The original Land Regulations of 1845 governing the British Settlement had provided for just four roads, those that came to be named Hankow (Hankou), Kiukiang (Jiujiang), Nanking (Nanjing), and Peking (Beijing). Additionally, the river frontage was to be preserved, initially as a towing path though eventually to become the raised Bund waterfront (the word Bund, often mistaken for a German expression, actually derives from the Hindustani word meaning an artificial causeway or embankment), which was only 25 feet broad anyway.

Virtually from a few yards back from the Bund the British were confronted with a settlement that was largely marsh,...

Shanghai’s road names have been in a constant state of flux since the foreign concessions were first created. The British initially used highly familiar names for the first roads—Church, Bridge, Park—and then later systematized their grid system with Chinese cities providing names for roads running east to west from The Bund and Chinese provinces for those roads running south to north from the border with the French Concession to Soochow Creek. The Roads Committee chose other names based on places, individuals etc. Similarly the French used basic naming at first—Administration, Observatoire, Marché—and then a mixture of...

Alabaster Road—named after Sir Chaloner Alabaster (1838-83), originally an interpreter with the British Consulate who established Shanghai’s First Joint Magistrate Mixed Court with Chinese and foreign judges jointly presiding. Alabaster (who’s family crest is pictured right) was also closely involved with General Charles “Chinese” Gordon’s multiracial rag-tag, but ultimately successful, fighting force, the Ever Victorious Army, which finally defeated the Taiping Rebels in 1864 after he took over from the dead Frederick Townsend Ward. Alabaster later became Acting British Consul-General in Shanghai between 1884 and 1887, then British Consul-General for Canton (Guangzhou) in 1894. Known as the “Buster,” Sir...

Rue Adina—there is no recorded reason why this road, constructed around 1930, was given the name Adina. However, legend has it that is was rather charmingly named after a lady secretary in the real estate company who owned the major property on the road, or so the legend went.

Rue de l’Administration—the road, one of the first to be formally laid out in the French Concession (around 1863), was a continuation of Shantung Road across Avenue Edward VII into Frenchtown down to the border with the Chinese city. Its name was changed to Rue Mathieu in 1921 (see...

Amherst Avenue—named after the ship Lord Amherst that, in 1832, brought the first plenipotentiary of the East India Company to Shanghai accompanied by the Prussian missionary-doctor cum diplomat-interpreter (and later opium trader), the Reverend Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff (1803-51) as interpreter. The ship first visited Foochow (Fuzhou) where the Amherst’s Captain Lindsey managed to sell some trade goods and Gützlaff distributed Christian tracts “to eager and grateful readers” (or so he claimed). The ship was named after William Pitt Amherst, the First Earl Amherst (1773-1857), commonly known as Lord Amherst and the man who had attempted to open up...