page_title: Shanghai
section_title: Name
hierarchical_section_title: Shanghai / Name
context_page_description: Shanghai is the biggest city in China and one of the world's largest cities. It had about 24,000,000 people in 2017. It is so big and important that it is a special province-level city, like Beijing, Tianjin, and Chongqing. Right now, it is the biggest port in the world.
context_section_description: The Mandarin Chinese name of Shanghai is Shànghǎi, which is written as 上海 in Chinese characters. This name means "On-the-Sea" because Shanghai used to be next to the East China Sea. Today, dirt from the Yangtze River has made Pudong much bigger and downtown Shanghai is about 40 kilometers (25 mi) from the open sea. The city has become so big, though, that its government now controls other areas like Pudong and Fengxian that are still beside the sea.
  Shanghai's name is a little simpler than most other Chinese cities' names, because it was a small fishing village for a long time. The short way to say its name in Chinese is still Hù (沪). A hu was an old kind of fishing trap that was made with bamboo and nets. The people around Shanghai used to use them to catch fish and crabs in Suzhou Creek and other waterways.
caption: Shanghai in Chinese writing