50 free Shanghai trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Shanghai went from a fishing village behind a pirate wall to the world's busiest container port, and this quiz covers the road between. It starts with the meaning of the name and the fishing tool behind Hù, moves through the 1842 treaty, the International Settlement and French Concession, the founding of the Communist Party, Shanghailanders and Jewish refugees, the PLA's arrival in 1949 and Deng Xiaoping's 1990 green light for Pudong. The skyline gets its share: the Bund and where its name comes from, the Oriental Pearl's 468 metres, the Shanghai Tower and its rooftop hotel, the maglev's 431 km/h, the world's largest metro, Expo 2010's 73 million visitors and Disney's biggest castle. There are questions on Yu Garden, shikumen houses, Nanjing Road, Nanxiang soup dumplings, Benbang cuisine, Shanghainese and Wu Chinese, Yao Ming, the Chinese Grand Prix and Fudan and Jiao Tong. Easy questions ask which river splits the city and what the name means; hard ones want the emperor who moved the customs house and the secret society that seized the Old City in 1853. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the city and its landmarks, and each question carries the sentence that supports it. Try our Beijing and China quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The two characters of Shanghai's name together mean what?
On the Sea
Historians think the area lay below sea level in the Tang era, so the land literally appeared to be on the sea; the name was fixed in 1280.
Q 02Which river bisects Shanghai, dividing Puxi from Pudong?
The Huangpu
Legend says Lord Chunshen ordered it dug in the Warring States period; twelve bridges and fourteen tunnels now cross it.
Q 03Shanghai's Chinese abbreviation Hù comes from a word for what?
A fishing tool
The character appears on the city's licence plates; another old name, Shēn, honours Lord Chunshen whose fief covered the area.
Q 04Shanghai's first city wall, built in 1554, was intended to protect the town from whom?
Japanese pirates
The wall stood 10 metres high and 5 km round; it was demolished in 1912 because it blocked the city's growth.
Q 05Which 1842 agreement ending the First Opium War opened Shanghai as one of five treaty ports?
Nanking
Britain, France and the United States then set up settlements outside the walled Chinese city.
Q 06In 1863 the British and American settlements merged to form what?
The Shanghai International Settlement
The French stayed out and kept their own concession to the south and southwest.
Q 07The Chinese Communist Party was founded in July 1921 in which part of Shanghai?
The French Concession
Four years later the May Thirtieth Movement erupted after a Japanese foreman shot a Chinese mill worker.
Q 08Long-term foreign residents of 1930s Shanghai called themselves what?
Shanghailanders
By 1932 the city was home to 70,000 foreigners, including some 20,000 White Russians.
Q 09Which Japanese vice-consul in Lithuania issued thousands of visas to Jewish refugees bound for Shanghai?
Chiune Sugihara
The refugees were confined to the Shanghai Ghetto in Hongkou after Pearl Harbor and freed by the Chinese Army in 1945.
Q 10Which leader permitted Shanghai to begin economic reforms in 1990, opening up Pudong?
Deng Xiaoping
That year the central government named Shanghai the 'Dragon Head' of reform and opening up; the new financial district rose on the east bank.
Q 11Shanghai's harbour holds what world ranking?
Busiest container port
The city also hosts the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Asia-Pacific's largest by market value, and mainland China's first free-trade zone.
Q 12Shanghai's urban population of about thirty million makes it roughly which-largest city in the world?
5th
It is China's most populous city and a provincial-level municipality, one of only three not merged into provinces in 1949; the 2010 Expo alone drew tens of millions.
Q 13The word 'Bund', for Shanghai's famous waterfront, was borrowed into English from which language?
Hindustani
It originally meant a dyke or embankment; floods later prompted a levee that leaves the walkway some 10 metres above street level.
Q 21Before May 2021 the Shanghai maglev, the world's fastest commercial train, cruised at what speed?
431 km/h
It has since been slowed to 300 km/h; the line is not part of the Metro network.
Q 22As of 2025, the Shanghai Metro, opened in 1993, was described as what?
The largest network in the world by route length
As of 2025 it had 19 lines, 508 stations and 808 km of track; only Beijing and Tianjin opened rapid transit earlier in mainland China.
Q 23Shanghai's two commercial airports are Pudong and which other, mainly for domestic flights?
Hongqiao
Q 14The Bund's row of early 20th-century buildings faces which modern skyscraper district across the river?
Lujiazui
From the 1860s to the 1930s it was the power centre of the foreign establishment; the Art Deco Sassoon House is now the Peace Hotel.
Q 15The Oriental Pearl Tower, built 1991–94, stands how tall including its antenna?
468 metres
It was China's tallest structure until 2007 and has fifteen observation decks; its designers cited a Tang poem about a pipa player.
Q 16The Shanghai Tower, completed in 2015, rises to what height?
632 metres
It is China's tallest building and the world's third tallest, and it held the record for fastest elevators until 2017.
Q 17Which American firm designed the Shanghai Tower, with Shanghainese architect Jun Xia leading the team?
Gensler
Its twisting tiered form sits beside the Jin Mao Tower and the World Financial Center, the world's first cluster of three adjacent supertalls.
Q 18The J Hotel on the Shanghai Tower's 120th floor claims to be the world's what?
Highest
Its 165 rooms opened in 2021 at the very top of the building, according to CNN.
Q 19Yu Garden in the Old City was first built in 1559 by Pan Yunduan as a comfort for whom?
His elderly father
He began the Ming-era garden after failing an imperial exam; its Exquisite Jade Rock is a porous five-ton boulder said to have been salvaged from the river.
Q 20The Shanghai maglev, opened in 2004, links Longyang Road with which airport?
Pudong International
It was the world's first commercial high-speed maglev; the technology came from ThyssenKrupp and Siemens.
Pudong handled 74 million passengers in 2018; a new airport link line joined the two in December 2024.
Q 24Expo 2010 in Shanghai set a record for attendance with roughly how many visitors, in millions?
About 73
Some 246 countries and organisations took part on the largest Expo site ever, 5.28 square km.
Q 25What was the theme of Expo 2010 Shanghai?
Better City – Better Life
Its emblem reworked the Chinese character for 'world' into three people; the China Pavilion still stands from the fair.
Q 26Shanghai's Disney park, opened in June 2016, features which distinction among the company's parks?
The biggest castle of any of them
The Enchanted Storybook Castle anchors eight themed lands including Zootopia; the park drew 14.7 million visitors in 2024.
Q 27Nanjing Road, Shanghai's main shopping street, is named after a city that was once capital of what?
The Republic of China
Its western half was once Bubbling Well Road, built outside the International Settlement; the two met at the old Shanghai Race Club.
Q 28Shanghai-style xiaolongbao are associated with which former village, now in Jiading District?
Nanxiang
In Shanghainese they are xiaolong mantou; the Suzhou style is up to twice as big and sweeter.
Q 29Which of these is a signature dish of Shanghai's Benbang cuisine, alongside xiaolongbao and hairy crab?
Red braised pork belly
Local cooking draws on the neighbouring provinces, as does the Shanghainese language.
Q 30The local language, Shanghainese, belongs to which branch of Chinese?
Wu
It is mutually unintelligible with Mandarin and close to the speech of Suzhou and Ningbo; fluency among the young has been declining.