The Bund ("Wai Tan" in Chinese), the symbol of both old and new Shanghai, is a 4-kilometer-long waterfront boulevard along the western Bank of the Huangpu River, stretching from the Waibaidu Bridge in the north to the Nanpu Bridge in the south. On the Bund are 52 buildings of different architectural styles such as Gothic, Baroque Romanesque, Renaissance, and Chinese. Hence, the Bund is also regarded as "The Museum of International Architecture."

The unique geography around the Bund and that geography's effect on the economies of Shanghai and China throughout the past one hundred years gives the Bund special cultural significance. Considered a historic symbol of Shanghai, the Bund is a source of great pride to the Shanghai people, as it shows the world Shanghai's culture and its capability to combine its local culture with other cultures abroad.

  Memories of the towpath

The name "Bund" is derived from an Anglo-Indian term meaning "a muddy embankment," recalling the flood barriers that used to line around it. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Shanghai was still a small seaside town on the shore of the Huangpu River, and the Bund area was a mere shallow waterfront covered with reeds.

Before the foreigners arrived, this area was a towpath with a wide foreshore, covered or uncovered according to the state of the tide, and its wide-open space was secured, not from any aesthetic sense, but because of the necessity of leaving a path for the trackers.

The Bund in 1928

From time immemorial, trackers had used the towpath along the shore of the Huangpu River, and wooden boats were the means of communication that carried passengers across the Huangpu River. The boats, driven by bamboo poles and oars, meandered slowly along.

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