Shanghai.

The Bund is more than a row of grand facades. Read from the Huangpu River inward, its architecture traces Shanghai's changing relationship with finance, the waterfront and the city behind it.

Yangpu’s riverfront preserves the scale of a working industrial district. Factories, warehouses and waterworks show how Shanghai’s modern city was built—and how old production sites can enter public life.

On East Nanjing Road, department-store windows, vertical movement and changing names tell how shopping became part of Shanghai's modern public life.

Plane trees, older facades and changing retail interiors make Huaihai Road a place to read fashion through the spaces that frame it.

Thin wheat noodles, slow-cooked scallion oil and soy create one of Shanghai’s most recognizable everyday flavors. A familiar home-style dish shows how aroma can do the work of a long ingredient list.

A thin wrapper, pork filling and savory broth made Nanxiang xiaolongbao a small food with a strong sense of place. Its story begins in a town now within Shanghai's Jiading district.

In Zhujiajiao, canals shape the old town’s street plan. A five-arch bridge, riverside houses and narrow lanes show how movement and trade once followed the water in western Shanghai.

Jinze’s canals are crossed by bridges from several dynasties. Their changing forms—from stone arches to timber-and-stone beam spans—make this Qingpu town a record of how people crossed, gathered and worshipped beside water.